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MADAME BOVARY 


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TO 


MARIE-ANTOINE-JULES SENARD, 
MEMBER OF THE PARIS BAR, 
EX-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, AND FORMER 
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR. 


Dear AND ILLUSTRIOUS FRIEND,— 

PERMIT me to inscribe your name at the head of this book, 
and above its dedication; for it is to you, before all, that I owe 
its publication. Reading over your magnificent defence, my work 
has acquired for myself, as it were, an unexpected authority. 
Accept, then, here, the homage of my gratitude, which, how greai 
soever it is, will never attain the height of your eloquence and 
your devotion. 

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT. 


“The appearance of ‘Madame Bovary’ unmutilated and in vol- 
ume form produced something like a revolution in the literary 
world. This exquisite perfection of style—and, like Coleridge, 
Flaubert maintained that prose must have its rhythm as well as 
poetry—combined with this strange power of observation and 
analysis, this poetical form allied to the self-restraint of a scien- 
tific treatise, this complete effacement of the author’s personality 
and the reality of all his personages, of whom the very least is a 
living, breathing being,—all this was something new in those 
early days of the Empire.” 








MADAME BOVARY 


rt Ruts 








MADAME BOVARY 


PART J 
I 


E were in class when the head-master ‘came in, followed 

by a “new fellow,” not wearing the school uniform, and 
a school servant carrying a large desk. Those who had been 
asleep woke up, and every one rose as if just surprised at his 
work. 

The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then, 
turning to the class-master, he said to him in a low voice— 

“Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend to 
your care; he'll be in the second. If his work and conduct 
are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper classes, as 
becomes his age.” 

The “new fellow,” standing in the corner behind the door 
so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad of about 
fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was cut square 
on his forehead like a village chorister’s; he looked reliable, 
but very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, 
his short school jacket of green cloth with black buttons must 
have been tight about the armholes, and showed at the open- 
ing of the cuffs red wrists accustomed to being bare. His 
legs, in blue stockings, looked out from beneath yellow trous- 
ers, drawn tight by braces. He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hob- 
nailed boots. 

We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all his 
ears, aS attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even to cross 
his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two o'clock the 
bell rang, the master was obliged to tell him to fall into line 
with the rest of us. 

When we came back to work, we were in the habit of 

1 


2 MADAME BOVARY 


throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our hands 
more free; we used from the door to toss them under the 
form, so that they hit against the wall and made a lot of 
dust: it was “the thing.” 

But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not dare 
to attempt it, the “new fellow” was still holding his cap on 
his knees even after prayers were over. It was one of those 
head-gears of composite order, in which we can find traces 
of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton 
nightcap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugli- 
ness has depths of expression, like an imbecile’s face. Oval, 
stiffened with whalebone, it began with three round knobs; 
then came in succession lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin 
separated by a red band; after that a sort of bag that ended 
in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated braiding, 
from which hung, at the end of a long thin cord, small twisted 
gold threads in the manner of a tassel. The cap was new; its 
peak shone. 

“Rise,” said the master. 

He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. 
He stooped to pick it up. A neighbour knocked it down again 
with his elbow; he picked it up once more. 

“Get rid of your helmet,” said the master, who was a bit of 
a wag. 

There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which so 
thoroughly put the poor lad out of countenance that he did 
not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave it on the 
ground, or put it on his head. He sat down again and placed 
it on his knee. 

“Rise,” repeated the master, “and tell me your name.” 

The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an unintel- 
ligible name. 

“Again !” 

The same sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned by the 
tittering of the class. 

“Louder!” cried the master; “louder!” 

The “new fellow” then took a supreme resolution, opened an 
inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the top of his voice 
as if calling some one the word “Charbovari.” 

A hubbub broke out, rose in crescendo with bursts of shrill 
voices (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated “Charbovari! 
Charbovari!”), then died away into single notes, growing quieter 
only with great difficulty, and now and again suddenly recom- - 
mencing along the line of a form whence rose here and there, 
like a damp cracker going off, a stifled laugh. 


MADAME BOVARY 3 


However, amid a rain of impositions, order was graduafly 
re-established in the class; and the master having succeeded in 
catching the name of “Charles Bovary,” having had it dictated 
to him, spelt out, and re-read, at once ordered the poor devil 
to go and sit down on the punishment form at the foot of the 
master’s desk. He got up, but before going hesitated. 

“What are you looking for?” asked the master. 

“My c-a-p,” timidly said the “new fellow,” casting troubled 
looks round him. 

“Five hundred verses for all the class!” shouted in a furious 
voice, stopped, like the Quos ego, a fresh outburst. “Silence!’’ 
continued the master indignantly, wiping his brow with his 
handkerchief, which he had just taken from his cap. “As 
to you, ‘new boy,’ you will conjugate ‘ridiculus sum’ twenty 
times.” Then, in a gentler tone, “Come, you'll find your cap 
again; it hasn’t been stolen.” 

Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the “new 
fellow” remained for two hours in an exemplary attitude, al- 
though from time to time some paper pellet flipped from the tip 
of a pen came bang in his face. But he wiped his face with 
one hand and continued motionless, his eyes lowered. 

In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens from 
his desk, arranged his small belongings, and carefully ruled his 
paper. We saw him working conscientiously, looking out every 
word in the dictionary, and taking the greatest pains. Thanks, 
no doubt, to the willingness he showed, he had not to go down 
to the class below. But though he knew his rules passably, he 
had little finish in composition. It was the curé of his village 
who had taught him his first Latin; his parents, from motives 
of economy, having sent him to school as late as possible. 

His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolomé Bovary, re- 
tired assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812 in certain 
conscription scandals, and forced at this time to leave the service, 
had taken advantage of his fine figure to get hold of a dowry 
of sixty thousand francs that offered in the person of a hosier’s 
daughter who had fallen in love with his good looks. A fine 
man, a great talker, making his spurs ring as he waiked, wearing 
whiskers that ran into his moustache, his fingers always gar- 
nished with rings and dressed in loud colours, he had the dash of 
a military man with the easy go of a commercial traveller. Once 
married, he lived for three or four years on his wife’s fortune, 
dining well, rising late, smoking long porcelain pipes, not coming 
in at night till after the theatre, and haunting cafés. The 
father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant at this, “went 
in for the business,” lost some money in it, then retired to the 


4 MADAME BOVARY 


country, where he thought he would make money. But, as he 
knew no more about farming than calico, as he rode his horses 
instead of sending them to plough, drank his cider in bottle 
instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest poultry in his farm- 
yard, and greased his hunting-boots with the fat of his pigs, he 
was not long in finding out that he would do better to give up 
all speculation. 

For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on the 
border of the provinces of Caux and Picardy, in a kind of 
place half farm, half private house; and here, soured, eaten 
up with regrets, cursing his luck, jealous of every one, he shut 
himself up at the age of forty-five, sick of men, he said, and 
determined to live in peace. 

His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored him 
with a thousand servilities that had only estranged him the 
more. Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in growing older 
she had become (after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, 
turns to vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She had 
suffered so much without complaint at first, when she had seen 
him going after all the village drabs, and when a score of bad 
houses sent him back to her at night, weary, stinking drunk. 
Then her pride revolted. After that she was silent, burying 
her anger in a dumb stoicism that she maintained till her death. 
She was constantly going about looking after business matters. 
She called on the lawyers, the president, remembered when bills 
fell due, got them renewed, and at home ironed, sewed, washed, 
looked after the workmen, paid the accounts, while he, troubling 
himself about nothing, eternally besotted in sleepy sulkiness, 
whence he only roused himself to say disagreeable things to 
her, sat smoking by the fire and spitting into the cinders. 

When she had a child, it had to be sent out to nurse. When 
he came home, the lad was spoilt as if he were a prince. His 
mother stuffed him with jam; his father let him run about 
barefoot, and, playing the philosopher, even said he might as 
well go about quite naked like the young of animals. As 
opposed to the maternal ideas, he had a certain virile idea of 
childhood on which he sought to mould his son, wishing him 
to be brought up hardily, like a Spartan, to give him a strong 
constitution. He sent him to bed without any fire, taught him 
to drink off large draughts of rum and to jeer at religious pro- 
cessions. But, peaceable by nature, the lad answered only poorly 
to his notions. His mother always kept him near her; she - 
cut out cardboard for him, told him tales, entertained him with 
endless monologues full of melancholy gaiety and charming non- 
sense. In her life’s isolation she centered on the child’s head 





MADAME BOVARY § 


all her shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed of high 
station; she already saw him, tall, handsome, clever, settled as 
an engineer or in the law. She taught him to read, and even 
on an old piano she had taught him two or three little songs. 
But to all this Monsieur Bovary, caring little for letters, said 
“It was not worth while. Would they ever have the means to 
send him to a public school, to buy him a practice, or start him 
in business? Besides, with cheek a man always gets on in the 
world.” Madame Bovary bit her lips, and the child knocked 
about the village. 

He went after the labourers, drove away with clods of earth 
the ravens that were flying about. He ate blackberries along 
the hedges, minded the geese with a long switch, went hay- 
making during harvest, ran about in the woods, played hop- 
scotch under the church porch on rainy days, and at great fétes 
begged the beadle to let him toll the bells, that he might hang 
all his weight on the long rope and feel himself borne upward 
by it in its swing. Meanwhile he grew like an oak; he was 
strong of hand, fresh of colour. 

When he was twelve years old his mother had her own way; 
he began his lessons. The curé took him in hand; but the 
lessons were so short and irregular that they could not be of 
much use. They were given at spare moments in the sacristy, 
' standing up, hurriedly, between a baptism and a burial; or else 
the curé, if he had not to go out, sent for his pupil after the 
Angelus. They went up to his room and settled down; the 
flies and moths fluttered round the candle. It was close, the 
child fell asleep, and the good man, beginning to doze with his 
hands on his stomach, was soon snoring with his mouth wide 
open. On other occasions, when Monsieur le Curé, on his way 
back after administering the viaticum to some sick person in the 
neighbourhood, caught sight of Charles playing about the fields, 
he called him, lectured him for a quarter of an hour, and took 
advantage of the occasion to make him conjugate his verb at 
the foot of a tree. The rain interrupted them or an acquaint- 
ance passed. All the same he was always pleased with him, and 
even said the “young man” had a very good memory. 

Charles could not go on like this. Madame Bovary took 
strong steps. Ashamed, or rather tired out, Monsieur Bovary 
gave in without a struggle, and they waited one year longer, 
so that the lad should take his first communion. 

Six months more passed, and the year after Charles wa: 
finally sent to school at Rouen, whither his father took hin, 
towards the end of October, at the time of the St. Romain fair. 

It would now be impossible for any of us to remember any 


6 MADAME BOVARY 


thing about him. He was a youth of even temperament, who 
played in playtime, worked in school-hours, was attentive in 
class, slept well in the dormitory, and ate well in the refectory. 
He had in loco parentis a wholesale ironmonger in the Rue 
Ganterie, who took him out once a month on Sundays after his 
shop was shut, sent him for a walk on the quay to look at the 
boats, and then brought him back to college at seven o'clock 
before supper. Every Thursday evening he wrote a long letter 
to his mother with red ink and three wafers; then he went 
over his history note-books, or read an old volume of “Anar- 
chasis” that was knocking about the study. When he went for 
walks he talked to the servant, who, like himself, came from 
the country. 

By dint of hard work he kept always about the middle of 
the class; once even he got a certificate in natural history. But 
at the end of his third year his parents withdrew him from 
the school to make him study medicine, convinced that he could 
even take his degree by himself. 

His mother chose a room for him on the fourth floor of a 
dyer’s she knew, overlooking the Eau-de-Robec. She made 
arrangements for his board, got him furniture, table and two 
chairs, sent home for an old cherry-tree bedstead, and bought 
besides a small cast-iron stove with the supply of wood that 
was to warm the poor child. Then at the end of a week she 
departed, after a thousand injunctions to be good now that he 
was going to be left to himself. 

The syllabus that he read on the notice-board stunned him: 
lectures on anatomy, lectures on pathology, lectures on physi- 
ology, lectures on pharmacy, lectures on botany and clinical 
medicine, and therapeutics, without counting hygiene and materia 
medica—all names of whose etymologies he was ignorant, and 
that were to him as so many doors to sanctuaries filled with 
magnificent darkness. 

He understood nothing of it all; it was all very well to listen 
—he did not follow. Still he worked; he had bound note-books, 
he attended all the courses, never missed a single lecture. He 
did his little daily task like a mill-horse, who goes round and 
round with his eyes bandaged, not knowing what work he is 
doing. 

To spare him expense his mother sent him every week by 
the carrier a piece of veal baked in the oven, with which he 
lunched when he came back from the hospital, while he sat 
kicking his feet against the wall. After this he had to run off 
to lectures, to the operation-room, to the hospital, and return 
to his home at the other end of the town. In the evening, 


MADAME BOVARY 7 


after the poor dinner of his landlord, he went back to his room 
and set to work again in his wet clothes, that smoked as he 
sat in front of the hot stove. 

On the fine summer evenings, at the time when the close 
streets are empty, when the servants are playing shuttle-cock at 
the doors, he opened his window and leaned out. The river, that 
makes of this quarter of Rouen a wretched little Venice, flowed 
beneath him, between the bridges and the railings, yellow, 
violet, or blue. Working men, kneeling on the banks, washed 
their bare arms in the water. On poles projecting from the 
attics, skeins of cotton were drying in the air. Opposite, be- 
yond the roofs, spread the pure heaven with the red sun setting. 
How pleasant it must be at home! How fresh under the beech- 
tree! And he expanded his nostrils to breathe in the sweet 
odours of the country which did not reach him. 

He grew thin, his figure became taller, his face took a saddened 
look that made it nearly interesting. Naturally, through indif- 
ference, he abandoned all the resolutions he had made. Once 
he missed a lecture; the next day all the lectures; and, enjoying 
his idleness, little by little he gave up work altogether. He 
got into the habit of going to the public-house, and had a 
passion for dominoes. To shut himself up every evening in 
the dirty public room, to push about on marble tables the small 
sheep-bones with black dots, seemed to him a fine proof of his 
freedom, which raised him in his own esteem. It was beginning 
to see life, the sweetness of stolen pleasures; and when he 
entered, he put his hand on the door-handle with a joy almost 
sensual. Then many things hidden within him came out; he 
learnt couplets by heart and sang them to his boon compan- 
ions, became enthusiastic about Béranger, learnt how to make 
punch, and, finally, how to make love. 

Thanks to these preparatory labours, he failed completely in 
his examination for an ordinary degree. He was expected home 
the same night to celebrate his success. He started on foot, 
stopped at the beginning of the village, sent for his mother, and 
told her all. She excused him, threw the blame of his failure 
on the injustice of the examiners, encouraged him a little, and 
took upon herself to set matters straight. It was only five 
years later that Monsieur Bovary knew the truth; it was old 
then, and he accepted it. Moreover, he could not believe that 
a man born of him could be a fool. 

So Charles set to work again and crammed for his examina- 
tion, ceaselessly learning all the old questions by heart. He 
passed pretty well. What a happy day for his mother! They 
gave a grand dinner. 


8 MADAME BOVARY 


Where should he go to practise? To Tostes, where there 
was only one old doctor. For a long time Madame Bovary 
had been on the look-out for his death, and the old fellow 
had barely been packed off when Charles was installed, opposite 
his place, as his successor. 

But it was not everything to have brought up a son, to have 
had him taught medicine, and discovered Tostes, where he could 
practise it; he must have a wife. She found him one—the 
widow of a bailiff at Dieppe, who was forty-five and had an 
income’ of twelve hundred francs. Though she was ugly, as 
dry as a bone, her face with as many pimples as the spring 
has buds, Madame Dubuc had no lack of suitors. To attain 
her ends Madame Bovary had to oust them all, and she even 
succeeded in very cleverly baffling the intrigues of a pork- 
‘butcher backed up by the priests. 

Charles had seen in marriage the advent of an easier life, 
thinking he would be more free to do as he liked with himself 
and his money. But his wife was master; he had to say this 
and not say that in company, to fast every Friday, dress as 
she liked, harass at her bidding those patients who did not pay. 
She opened his letters, watchea his comings and goings, and 
listened at the partition-wall when women came to consult him 
in his surgery. 

She must have her chocolate every morning, attentions without 
end. She constantly complained of her nerves, her chest, her 
liver. The noise of footsteps made her ill; when people left 
her, solitude became odious to her; if they came back, it was 
doubtless to see her die. When Charles returned in the evening, 
she stretched forth two long thin arms from beneath the sheets, 
‘put them round his neck, and having made him sit down on 
the edge of the bed, began to talk to him of her troubles: he 
was neglecting her, he loved another. She had been warned 
she would be unhappy; and she ended by asking him for a dose 
of medicine and a little more love. 


II 


ONE night towards eleven o’clock they were awakened by 

the noise of a horse pulling up outside their door. The 
servant opened the garret-window and parleyed for some time 
with a man in the street below. He came for the doctor, had 
a letter for him. Natasie came downstairs shivering and undid 
the bars and bolts one after the other. The man left his horse, 
and, following the servant, suddenly came in behind her. He 


MADAME BOVARY 9 


pulled out from his wool cap with grey top-knots a letter 
wrapped up in a rag and presented it gingerly to Charles, who 
rested on his elbow on the pillow to read it. Natasie, standing 
near the bed, held the light. Madame in modesty had turned 
to the wall and showed only her back. 

This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, begged 
Monsieur Bovary to come immediately to the farm of the Ber- 
taux to set a broken leg. Now from Tostes to the Bertaux was 
a good eighteen miles across country by way of Longueville 
and Saint-Victor. It was a dark night; Madame Bovary junior 
was afraid of accidents for her husband. So it was decided 
the stable-boy should go on first; Charles would start three 
hours later when the moon rose. A boy was to be sent to 
meet him, and show him the way to the farm, and open the 
gates for him. 

Towards four o’clock in the morning, Charles, well wrapped 
up in his cloak, set out for the Bertaux. Still sleepy from the 
warmth of his bed, he let himself be lulled by the quiet trot 
of his horse. When it stopped of its own accord in front of 
those holes surrounded with thorns that are dug on the margin 
of furrows, Charles awoke with a start, suddenly remembered 
the broken leg, and tried to call to mind all the fractures he 
knew. The rain had stopped, day was breaking, and on the 
branches of the leafless trees birds roosted motionless, their 
little feathers bristling in the cold morning wind. The flat 
country stretched as far as eye could see, and the tufts of trees 
round the farms at long intervals seemed like dark violet stains 
on the vast grey surface, that on the horizon faded into the 


gloom of the sky. Charles from time to time opened his eyes, » 


his mind grew weary, and sleep coming upon him, he soon fell 
into a doze wherein his recent sensations blending with memo- 
ries, he became conscious of a double self, at once student and 
married man, lying in his bed as but now, and crossing the 
operation theatre as of old. The warm smell of poultices 
mingled in his brain with the fresh odour of dew; he heard 
the iron rings rattling along the curtain-rods of the bed and 
saw his wife sleeping. As he passed Vassonville he came upon 
a boy sitting on the grass at the edge of a ditch. 

“Are you the doctor?” asked the child. 

And on Charles’s answer he took his wooden shoes in his 
hands and ran on in front of him. 

The general practitioner, riding along, gathered from _ his 
guide’s talk that Monsieur Rouault must be one of the well- 
to-do farmers. He had broken his leg the evening before on 
his way home from a Twelfth-night feast at a neighbour’s. His 


10 MADAME BOVARY 


wife had been dead for two years. There was only his daugh- 
ter, who helped him to keep house, with him. 

The ruts were becoming deeper; they were Pea the 
Bertaux. The little lad, slipping through a hole in the hedge, 
disappeared; then he came back to the end of a courtyard to 
open the gate. The horse slipped on the wet grass; Charles 
had to stoop to pass under the branches. The watchdogs in 
their kennels barked, dragging at their chains. As he entered 
the Bertaux the horse took fright and stumbled. 

It was a substantial-looking farm. In the stables, over the 
top of the open doors, one could see great cart-horses quietly 
feeding from new racks. Right along the outbuildings ex- 
tended a large dunghill, from which manure liquid oozed, 
while amidst fowls and turkeys five or six peacocks, a luxury 
in Chauchois farmyards, were foraging on the top of it. The 
sheepfold was long, the barn high, with walls smooth as your 
hand. Under the cartshed were two large carts and four ploughs, 
with their whips, shafts and harnesses complete, whose fleeces 
of blue wool were getting soiled by the fine dust that fell from 
the granaries. The courtyard sloped upwards, planted with 
trees set out symmetrically, and the chattering noise of a flock 
of geese was heard near the pond. 

A young woman in a blue merino dress with three flounces 
came to the threshold of the door to receive Monsieur Bovary, 
whom she led to the kitchen, where a large fire was blazing. 
The servants’ breakfast was boiling beside it in small pots of 
all sizes. Some damp clothes were drying inside the chimney- 
corner. The shovel, tongs, and the nozzle of the bellows, all 
of colossal size, shone like polished steel, while along the walls 
hung many pots and pans in which the clear flame of the) 
hearth, mingling with the first rays of the sun coming in 
thidush the window, was mirrored fitfully. 

Charles went up to the first floor to see the patient. He 
found him in his bed, sweating under his bed-clothes, having 
thrown his cotton nightcap right away from him. He was a 
fat little man of fifty, with white skin and blue eyes, the fore 
part of his head bald, and he wore ear-rings. By his side on a 
chair stood a large decanter of brandy, whence he poured him- 
self out a little from time to time to keep up his spirits; but 
as soon as he caught sight of the doctor his elation subsided, 
and instead of swearing, as he had been doing for the last 
twelve hours, began to groan feebly. 

he fracture was a simple one, without any kind of complica- 
tion. Charles could not have honed for an easier case. Then 
calling to mind the devices of his masters at the beside of 


MADAME BOVARY 14. 


patients, he comforted the sufferer with all sorts of kindly 
remarks, those caresses of the surgeon that are like the oil they 
put on bistouries. In order to make some splints a bundle of 
laths was brought up from the carthouse. Charles selected one, 
cut it into two pieces and planed it with a fragment of window- 
pane, while the servant tore up sheets to make bandages, and 
Mademoiselle Emma tried to sew some pads. As she was 2 
long time before she found her workcase, her father grew 
impatient; she did not answer, but as she sewed she pricked her 
fingers, which she then put to her mouth to suck them. Charles 
was surprised at the whiteness of her nails. They were shiny, 
delicate at the tips, more polished than the ivory of Dieppe, and 
almond-shaped. Yet her hand was not beautiful, perhaps not 
white enough, and a little hard at the knuckles; besides, it was 
too long, with no soft inflections in the outlines. Her real 
beauty was in her eyes. Although brown, they seemed black 
because of the lashes, and her look came at you frankly, with a 
candid boldness. 

The bandaging over, the doctor was invited by Monsieur 
Rouault himself to “pick a bit” before he left. 

Charles went down into the room on the ground-floor. 
Knives and forks and silver goblets were laid for two on a 
little table at the foot of a huge bed that had a canopy of 
printed cotton with figures representing Turks. There was at 
odour of iris-root and damp sheets that escaped from a large 
oak chest opposite the window. On the floor in corners were 
sacks of flour stuck upright in rows. These were the overflow 
from the neighbouring granary, to which three stone steps led. 
By way of decoration for the apartment, hanging to a nail in 
the middle of the wall, whose green paint scaled off from the 
effects of the saltpetre, was a crayon head of Minerva in a gold 
frame, underneath which was written in Gothic letters “To dear 
Papa.” 

First they spoke of the patient, then of the weather, of the 
great cold, of the wolves that infested the fields at night. 
Mademoiselle Rouault did not at all like the country, especially 
now that she had to look after the farm almost alone. As the 
room was chilly, she shivered as she ate. This showed some- 
thing of her full lips, that she had a habit of biting when 
silent. 

Her neck stood out from a_white-turned-down collar. Her 
hair, whose two black folds seemed each of a single piece, so 
smooth were they, was parted in the middle by a delicate line 
that curved slightly with the curve of the head; and, just 
showing the tip of the ear, it was joined behind in a thick 


12 MADAME BOVARY 


chignon, with a wavy movement at the temples that the country 
doctor saw now for the first time in his life. The upper part 
of her cheek was rose-coloured. She had, like a man, thrust 
in between two buttons of her bodice a tortoise-shell eyeglass. 

When Charles, after bidding farewell to old Rouault, returned 
to the room before leaving, he found her standing, her fore- 
head against the window, looking into the garden, where the 
bean props had been knocked down by the wind. She turned 
round. “Are you looking for anything?” she asked. 

“My whip, if you please,” he answered. 

He began rummaging on the bed, behind the doors, under 
the chairs. It had fallen to the ground, between the sacks 
and the wall. Mademoiselle Emma saw it, and bent over the 
flour sacks. Charles out of politeness made a dash also, and as 
he stretched out his arm, at the same moment felt his breast 
' brush against the back of the young girl bending beneath him. 
’ She drew herself up, scarlet, and looked at him over her shoulder 
as she handed him his whip. 

Instead of returning to the Bertaux in three days as he had 
promised, he went back the very next day, then regularly twice 
a week, without counting the visits he paid now and then as if 
by accident. 

Everything, moreover, went well; the patient progressed 
favourably ; and when, at the end of forty-six days, old Rouault 
was seen trying to walk alone in his “den,” Monsieur Bovary 
began to be looked upon as a man of great capacity. Old 
Rouault said that he could not have been cured better by ce 
first doctor of Yvetot, or even of Rouen. ) 

As to Charles, he did not stay to ask himself why it was a/ 
pleasure to him to go to the Bertaux. Had he done so, a 
would, no doubt have attributed his zeal to the importance of | 
the case, or perhaps to the money he hoped to make by it. Was |: 
it for this, however, that his visits to the farm formed a de- | 
lightful exception to the meagre occupations of his life? On 
these days he rose early, set off at a gallop, urging on his horse, 
then got down to wipe his boots in the grass and put on black 
gloves before entering. He liked going into the courtyard, and 
noticing the gate turn against his shoulder, the cock crow on 
the wall, the lads run to meet him. He liked the granary and 
the stables; he liked old Rouault, who pressed his hand and 
called him his saviour; he liked the small wooden shoes of 
Mademoiselle Emma on the scoured flags of the kitchen—her 
high heels made her a little taller; and when she walked in 
front of him, the wooden soles springing up quickly struck 
with a sharp sound against the leather of her boots. 


MADAME BOVARY 13 


She always reconducted him to the first step of the stairs. 
When his horse had not yet been brought round she .stayed 
there. They had said “Good-bye”; there was no more talking. 
The open air wrapped her round, playing with the soft down 
on the back of her neck, or blew to and fro on her hips her 
apron-strings, that fluttered like streamers. Once, during a 
thaw, the bark of the trees in the yard was oozing, the snow 
on the roofs of the out-buildings was melting; she stood on 
the threshold, and went to fetch her sunshade and opened it. 
The sunshade, of silk of the colour of pigeons’ breasts, through 
which the sun shone, lighted up with shifting hues the white 
skin of her face. She smiled under the tender warmth, and 
drops of water could be heard falling one by one on the 
stretched silk. 

During the first period of Charles’s visits to the Bertaux, 
Madame Bovary, junior, never failed to inquire after the in- 
valid, and she had even chosen in the book that she kept on a 
system of double entry a clean blank page for Monsieur Rouault. 
But when she heard he had a daughter, she began to make 
inquiries, and she learnt that Mademoiselle Rouault, brought 
up at the Ursuline Convent, had received what is called “a good 
education”; and so knew dancirg, geography, drawing, how to 
embroider and play the piano. That was the last straw. 

“So it is for this,” she said to herself, “that his face beams 
when he goes to see her, and that he puts on his new waistcoat 
at the risk of spoiling it with the rain. Ah! that woman! that 
woman !” 

And she detested her instinctively. At first she solaced her- 
self by allusions that Charles did not understand, then by casual 
observations that he let pass for fear of a storm, finally by open 
apostrophes to which he knew not what to answer. “Why did 
he go back to the Bertaux now that Monsieur Rouault was 
cured and that these folks hadn’t paid yet? Ah! it was because 
a young lady was there, some one who knew how to talk, to 
embroider, to be witty. That was what he cared about; he 
wanted town misses.” And she went on:— 

“The daughter of old Rouault a town miss! Get out! Their 
grandfather was a shepherd, and they have a cousin who was 
almost had up at the assizes for a nasty blow in a quarrel. It 
is not worth while making such a fuss, or showing herself at 
church on Sundays in a silk gown like a countess. Besides, the 
poor old chap, if it hadn’t been for the colza last year, would 
have had much ado to pay up his arrears.” 

For very weariness Charles left off going to the Bertaux. 


si 


14 MADAME BOVARY 


Héloise made him swear, his hand on the prayer-book, that 
he would go there no more, after much sobbing and many 
kisses, in a great outburst of love. He obeyed then, but the 
strength of his desire protested against the servility of his con- 
duct; and he thought, with a kind of naive hypocrisy, that 
this interdict to see her gave him a sort of right to love her. 
And then the widow was thin; she had long teeth; wore in 
all weathers a little black shawl, the edge of which hung down 
between her shoulder-blades; her bony figure was sheathed in 
her clothes as if they were a scabbard; they were too short, 
and displayed her ankles with the laces of her large boots 
crossed over grey stockings. 

Charles’s mother came to see them from time to time, but 
after a few days the daughter-in-law seemed to put her own 
edge on her, and then, like two knives, they scarified him 
with their reflections and observations. It was wrong of him 
to eat so much. Why did he always offer a glass of something 
to every one who came? What obstinacy not to wear flannels! 

In the spring it came about that a notary at Ingouville, the 
holder of the widow Dubuc’s property, one fine day went off, 
taking with him all the money in his office. Heloise, it is true, 
still possessed, besides a share in a boat valued at six thousand 
francs, her house in the Rue St. Francois; and yet, with all this 
fortune that had been so trumpeted abroad, nothing, excepting 
perhaps a little furniture and a few clothes, had appeared in the 
household. The matter had to be gone into. The house at 
Dieppe was found to be eaten up with mortgages to its founda- 
tions; what she had placed with the notary God only knew, and 
her share in the boat did not exceed one thousand crowns. She 
had lied, the good lady! In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary 
the elder, smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of 
having caused the misfortune of their son by harnessing him to 
such a harridan, whose harness wasn’t worth her hide. They 
came to Tostes. Explanations followed. There were scenes. 
Héloise in tears, throwing her arms about her husband, con- 
jured him to defend her from his parents. Charles tried to 
speak up for her. They grew angry and left the house. 

But “the blow had struck home.” A week after, as she was 
hanging up some washing in her yard, she was seized with a 


spitting of blood, and the next day, while Charles had his back 
‘turned to her drawing the window-curtain, she said, “O God!” 
‘gave a sigh and fainted. She was dead!...What.a surprise! 


When all was over at the cemetery Charles went home. He 
found no one downstairs; he went up to the first floor °to 
their room; saw her dress still hanging at the foot of the 


MADAME BOVARY 15 


alcove; then, leaning against the writing-table, he stayed until 
the evening, buried in a sorrowful reverie. She had loved him 
after all! 


gn 
’ 


III 


ONE morning old Rouault brought Charles the money for 

setting his leg—seventy-five francs in forty-sou pieces, and 
a turkey. He had heard of his loss, and consoled him as well 
as he could. 

“I know what it is,” said he, clapping him on the shouider; 
“T’ve been through it. When I lost my dear departed, 1 went 
into the fields to be quite alone. I fell at the foot of a tree; 
I cried; I called on God; I talked nonsense to Him. I wanted 
to be like the moles that I saw on the branches, their insides 
swarming with worms, dead, and an end of it. And when I 
thought that there were others at that very moment with their 
nice little wives holding them in their embrace, I struck great 
blows on the earth with my stick. I was pretty well mad with 
not eating; the very idea of going to a café disgusted me—you 
wouldn’t believe it. Well, quite softly, one day fcllowing an- 
other, a spring on a winter, and an autumn after a summer, this 
wore away, piece by piece, crumb by crumb; it passed away, it 
is gone, I should say it has sunk; for something always remains 
at the bottom, as one would say—a weight here, at one’s heart. 
But since it is the lot of all of us, one must not give way alto- 
gether, and, because others have died, want to die too. You 
must pull yourself together, Monsieur Bovary. It will pass 
away. Come to see us; my daughter thinks of you now and 
again, d’ye know, and she says you are forgetting her. Spring 
will soon be here. We'll have some rabbit-shooting in the 
warrens to amuse you a bit.” 

Charles followed his advice. He went back to the Bertaux. 
He found all as he had left it, that is to say, as it was five 
months ago. The pear trees were already in blossom, and 
Farmer Rouault, on his legs again, came and went, making the 
farm more full of life. 

Thinking it his duty to heap the greatest attention upon the 
doctor because of his sad position, he begged him not to take 
his hat off, spoke to him in an undertone as if he had been ill, 
and even pretended to be angry because nothing rather lighter 
had been prepared for him than for the others, such as a little 
clotted cream or stewed pears. He told stories. Charles found 
himself laughing, but the remembrance of his wife suddenly 


16 MADAME BOVARY 


coming back to him depressed him. Coffee was brought in; he 
thought no more about her. 

He thought less of her as he grew accustomed to living alone. 
The new delight of independence soon made his loneliness bear- 
able. He could now change his meal-times, go in or out without 
explanation, and when he was very tired stretch himself at full 


length on his bed. So he nursed and coddled himself and | 


accepted the consolations that were offered him. On the other 
hand, the death of his wife had not served him ill in his busi- 


ness, since for a month people had been saying, “The poor | 


17? 


young man! what a loss!” His name had been talked about, 
his practice had increased; and, moreover, he could go to the 
Bertaux just as he liked. He had an aimless hope, and was 
vaguely happy; he thought himself better locking as he brushed 
his whiskers before the looking-glass. 

One day he got there about three o’clock. Everybody was in 
the fields. He went into the kitchen, but did not at once catch 
sight of Emma; the outside shutters were closed. Through the 
chinks of the wood the sun sent across the flooring long fine 
rays that were broken at the corners of the furniture and 
trembled along the ceiling. Some flies on the table were crawling 
up the glasses that had been used, and buzzing as they drowned 
themselves in the dregs of the cider. The daylight that came in 
by the chimney made velvet of the soot at the back of the 
fireplace, and touched with blue the cold cinders. Between the 
window and the hearth Emma was sewing; she wore no fichu; 
he could see small drops of perspiration on her bare shoulders. 

After the fashion of country folks she asked him to have 
something to drink. He said no; she insisted, and at last 
laughingly offered to havea glass of liqueur with him. So she 
went to fetch a bottle of curagoa> from the cupboard, reached 





down two small glasses, filled one to the brim, poured scarcely _ 


anything into the other, and, after having clinked glasses, 
carried hers to her mouth. As it was almost empty she bent 

back to drink, her head thrown back, her lips pouting, her neck 
“on the strain. She laughed at getting none of it, while with 


= the tip of her tongue passing between her small teeth she licked 


drop by drop the bottom of her glass. 


She sat down again and took up her work, a» white ‘cotton » 


stocking she was darning. She worked with her head bent 
down; she did not speak, nor did Charles. The air coming in 
under the door blew a little dust over the flags; he watched it 
drift along, and heard nothing but the throbbing in his head 
and the faint clucking of a hen that had laid an egg in the 
yard. Emma from time to time cooled her cheeks with the 


from giddiness; she asked if sea-baths would do her any good; ~~ 


MADAME BOVARY (17 


palms of her hands, and cooled these again on the knobs of the 


huge fire-dogs. 
She complained of suffering since the beginning of the season 


“she began talking of her convent, Charles of his school; words 


came to them. They went up into her bed-room. She showed 


him her old music-books, the little prizes she had won, and 


the oak-leaf crowns, left at the bottom of a cupboard. She 
spoke to him, too, of her mother, of the country, and even 


showed him the bed in the garden where, on the first Friday 


of every month, she gathered flowers to put on her mother’s 
tomb. But the gardener they had understood nothing about it; 
servants were so careless. She would have dearly liked, if only 
for the winter, to live in town, although the length of the fine 
days made the country perhaps even more wearisome in the 
summer. And, according to what she was saying, her voice 
was clear, sharp, or, on a sudden all languor, lingered out in 
modulations that ended almost in murmurs as she spoke to 
herself, now joyous, opening big naive eyes, then with her eye- 
lids half closed, her look full of boredom, her thoughts wan- 
dering. 

Going home at night, Charles went over her words one by one, 
trying to recall them, to fill out their sense, that he might piece 
out the life she had lived before he knew her. But he never 
saw her in his thoughts other than he had seen her the first 
time, or as he had just left her. Then he asked himself what 
would become of her—if she would be married, and to whom? 
Alas! old Rouault was rich, and she!—so beautiful! But Emma’s 
face always rose before his eyes, and a monotone, like the hum- 
ming of a top, sounded in his ears, “If you should marry after 
all! if you should marry!” At night he could not sleep; his 
throat was parched; he was athirst. He got up to drink from 
the water-bottle and opened the window. The night was cov- 
ered with stars, a warm wind blowing in the distance; the 
dogs were barking. He turned his head towards the Bertaux. 

Thinking that, after all, he should lose nothing, Charles 
promised himself to ask her in marriage as soon as occasion 
offered, but each time such occasion did offer the fear of not 
finding the right words sealed his lips. 

Old Rouault would not have been sorry to be rid of his 
daughter, who was of no use to him in the house. In his heart 
he excused her, thinking her too clever for farming, a calling 
under the ban of Heaven, since cne never saw a millionaire in 
it. Far from having made a fortune by it, the good man was 
losing every year; for if he was good in bargaining, in which 


18 MADAME BOVARY 


he enjoyed the dodges of the trade, on the other hand, agri- 
culture properly so called, and the internal management of the 
farm, suited him less than most people. He did not willingly 
take his hands out of his pockets, and did not spare expense 
in all that concerned himself, liking to eat well, to have good 
fires, and to sleep well. He liked old cider, underdone legs of 
mutton, glorias* well beaten up. He took his meals in the 
kitchen alone, opposite the fire, on a little table brought to him 
all ready laid as on the stage. 

When, therefore, he perceived that Charles’s cheeks grew 
red if near his daughter, which meant that he would propose’ 
for her one of these days, he chewed the cud of the matter 
beforehand. He certainly thought him a little meagre, and not 
quite the son-in-law he would have liked, but he was said to be 
well-conducted, economical, very learned, and no doubt would 
not make too many difficulties about the dowry. Now, as old 
Rouault would soon be forced to sell twenty-two acres of “his 
property,” as he owed a good deal to the mason, to the harness- 
maker, and as the shaft of the cider-press wanted renewing, “If 
he asks for her,” he said to himself, “I’ll give her to him.” 

At Michaeimas Charles went to spend three days at the Ber- 
taux. The last had passed like the others in procrastinating 
from hour to hour. Old Rouault was seeing him off; they 
were walking along the road full of ruts; they were about to 
part. This was the time. Charles gave himself as far as to the 
corner of the hedge, and at last, when past it— 

“Monsieur Rouault,’ he murmured, “I should like to say 
something to you.” 

They stopped. Charles was silent. 

“Well, tell me your story. Don’t I know all about it?” said 
old Rouault, laughing softly. 

“Monsieur Rouault—Monsieur Rouault,” stammered Charles. 

“T ask nothing better,” the farmer went on. “Although, no 
doubt, the little one is of my mind, still we must ask her opinion. 
So you get off—I’ll go back home. If it is ‘yes,’ you needn’t 
return because of all the people about, and besides it would 
upset her too much. But so that you mayn’t be eating your 
heart, I'll open wide the outer shutter of the window against 
the wall; you can see it from the back by leaning over the 
hedge.” 

And he went off. 

Charles fastened his horse to a tree; he ran into the road 
and waited. Half-an-hour passed, then he counted nin ‘een 





* A mixture of coffee and spirits—TRANS. 


MADAME BOVARY 19 


minutes by his watch. Suddenly a noise was heard against the 
wall; the shutter had been thrown back; the hook was still 
swinging. 

The next day by nine o’clock he was at the farm. Emma 
blushed as he entered, and she gave a little forced laugh to 
keep herself in countenance. Old Rouault embraced his future 
son-in-law. The discussion of money matters was put off; 
moreover, there was plenty of time before them, as the marriage 

| could not decently take place till Charles was out of mourning 
that is to say, about the spring of the next year. 

The winter passed waiting for this. Mademoiselle Rouault 
was busy with her trousseau. Part of it was ordered at Rouen, 
and she made herself chemises and nightcaps after fashion- 
plates that she borrowed. When Charles visited the farmer, the 
|preparations for the wedding were talked over; they wondered 
in what room they should have dinner; they dreamed of the 
number of dishes that would be wanted, and what should be 
the entrées. 

Emma would, on the contrary, have preferred to have a mid. 
night wedding with torches, but old Rouau!t could not under- 
stand such an idea. So there was a wedding at which forty: 
three persons were present, at which they remained sixteen 
hours at table, began again the next day, and to some extent on 
the days following. 


IV 


HE guests arrived early in carriages, in one-horse chaises, 

two-wheeled cars, old open gigs, waggonettes with leathe: 
hoods, and the young people from the nearer villages in carts, 
in which they stood up in rows, holding on to the sides so as 
jnot to fall, going at a trot and well shaken up. Some came 
\from a distance of thirty miles, from Goderville, from Norman- 
Wille, and from Cany. All the relatives of both families had 
jbeen invited, quarrels between friends arranged, acquaintances 
long since lost sight of written to. 
| From time to time one heard the crack of a whip behind the 
jnedge; then the gates opened, a chaise entered. Galloping*up 
to the foot of the steps, it stopped short and emptied its load. 
They got down from all sides, rubbing knees and stretching 
arms. The ladies, wearing bonnets, had on dresses in the town 
jfashion, gold watch chains, pelerines with the ends tucked into 
delts, or little coloured fichus fastened down behind with a pin, 
and that left the back of the neck bare. The lads, dressed like 


20 MADAME BOVARY 


their papas, seemed uncomfortable in their new clothes (many 
that day handselled their first pair of boots), and by their sides, 
speaking never a word, wearing the white dress of their first 
communion lengthened for the occasion, were some big girls of 
fourteen or sixteen, cousins or elder sisters no doubt, rubicund, 
bewildered, their hair greasy with rose-pomade, and very much 
afraid of dirtying their gloves. As there were not enough 
stable-boys to unharness all the carriages, the gentlemen turned 
1p their sleeves and set about it themselves. According to their 
different social positions they wore tail-coats, overcoats, shoot- 
ing-jackets, cutaway-coats: fine tail-coats, redolent of family 
respectability, that only came out of the wardrobe on state 
occasions; overcoats with long tails flapping in the wind and 
round capes and pockets like sacks; shooting-jackets of coarse 
cloth, generally worn with a cap with a brass-bound peak; very 
short cutaway-coats with two small buttons in the back, close 
together like a pair of eyes, and the tails of which seemed cut 
out of one piece by a carpenter’s hatchet. Some, too (but these, 
you may be sure, would sit at the bottom of the table), wore 
their best blouses—that is to say, with collars turned down to 
the shoulders, the back gathered into small plaits and the waist 
fastened very low down with a worked belt. 

And the shirts stood out from the chests like cuirasses! 
Every one had just had his hair cut; ears stood out from the 
heads; they had been close-shaved; a few, even, who had had 
to get up before daybreak, and not been able to see to shave, 
had diagonal gashes under their noses or cuts the size of a 
three-franc piece along the jaws, which the fresh air en route 
had enflamed, so that the great white beaming faces were 
mottled here and there with red dabs. 

The mairie was a mile and a half from the farm, and they 
went thither on foot, returning in the same way after the 
ceremony in the church. The procession, first united like one 
long coloured scarf that undulated across the fields, along the 
narrow path winding amid the green corn, soon lengthened out, 
and broke up into different groups that loitered to talk. The 
fiddler walked in front with his violin, gay with ribbons at its 
pegs. Then came the married pair, the relations, the friends, 
all following pell-mell; the children stayed behind amusing 
themselves plucking the bell-flowers from oat-ears, or playing 
amongst themselves unseen. Emma’s dress, too long, trailed a 
little on the ground; from time to time she stopped to pull it 
up, and then delicately, with her gloved hands, she picked off 
the coarse grass and the thistledowns, while Charles, empty 
handed, waited till she had finished. Old Rouault, with a new 








MADAME BOVARY 21 


silk hat and the cuffs of his black coat covering his hands up 
to the nails, gave his arm to Madame Bovary senior. As to 
Monsieur Bovary senior, who, heartily despising all these folk, 
had come simply in a frock-coat of military cut with one row 
of buttons—he was passing compliments of the bar to a fair 
young peasant. She bowed, blushed, and did not know what 
to say. The other wedding guests talked of their business or 
played tricks behind each other’s backs, egging one another on 
in advance to be jolly. Those who listened could always catch 
the squeaking of the fiddler, who went on playing across the 
fields. When he saw that the rest were far behind he stopped 
to take breath, slowly rosined his bow, so that the strings should 
sound more shrilly, then set off again, by turns lowering and 
raising his neck, the better to mark time for himself. The 
noise of the instrument drove away the little birds from afar. 

The table was laid under the cart-shed. On it were four 
sirloins, six chicken fricassées, stewed veal, three legs of mut- 
ton, and in the middle a fine roast sucking-pig, flanked by four 
chitterlings with sorrel. At the corners were decanters of 
brandy. Sweet bottled-cider frothed round the corks, and all 
the glasses had been filled to the brim with wine beforehand. 
Large dishes of yellow cream, that trembled with the least shake 
of the table, had designed on their smooth surface the initials 
of the newly wedded pair in nonpareil arabesques. A confec- 
tioner of Yvetot had been intrusted with the tarts and sweets. 
As he had only just set up in the the place, he had taken a lot 
of trouble, and at dessert he himself brought in a set dish that 
evoked loud cries of wonderment. To begin with, at its base 
there was a square of blue cardboard, representing a temple 
with porticoes, colonnades, and stucco statuettes all round, and 
in the niches constellations of gilt paper stars; then on the 
second stage was a dungeon of Savoy cake, surrounded by 
many fortifications in candied angelica, almonds, raisins, and 
quarters of oranges; and finally, on the upper platform a green 
field with rocks set in lakes of jam, nutshell boats, and a small 
Cupid balancing himself in a chocolate swing whose two up- 
rights ended in real roses for balls at the top. 

Until night they ate. When any of them were too tired of 
sitting, they went out for a stroll in the yard, or for a game 
with corks in the granary, and then returned to table. Some 
towards the finish went to sleep and snored. But with the 
coffee every one woke up. Then they began songs, showed off 
tricks, raised heavy weights, performed feats with their fingers, 
then tried lifting carts on their shoulders, made broad jokes, 
kissed the women. At night when they left, the horses, stuffed 


22 MADAME BOVARY 


up to the nostrils with oats, could hardly be got into the shafts; 
they kicked, reared, the harness broke, their masters laughed 
or swore; and all night in the light of the moon along country 
roads there were runaway carts at full gallop plunging into 
the ditches, jumping over yard after yard’ of stones, clambering 
up the hills, with women leaning out from the tilt to catch 
hold of the reins. 

Those who stayed at the Bertaux spent the night drinking in 
the kitchen. The children had fallen asleep under the seats. 

The bride had begged her father to be spared the usual mar- 
riage pleasantries. However, a fishmonger, one of their cousins 
(who had even brought a pair of soles for his wedding present), 
began to squirt water from his mouth through the keyhole, 
when old Rouault came up just in time to stop him, and explain 
to him that the distinguished position of his son-in-law would 
not allow of such liberties. The cousin all the same did not 
give in to these reasons readily. In his heart he accused old 
Rouault of being proud, and he joined four or five other 
guests in a corner, who having, through mere chance, been 
several times running served with the worst helps of meat, also 
were of opinion they had been badly used, and were whispering 
about their host, and with covered hints hoping he would ruin 
himself. 

Madame Bovary, senior, had not opened her mouth all day. 
She had been consulted neither as to the dress of her daughter- 
in-law nor as to the arrangement of the feast; she went to bed 
early. Her husband, instead of following her, sent to Saint- 
Victor for some cigars, and smoked till daybreak, drinking 
kirsch-punch, a mixture unknown to the company. This added 
greatly to the consideration in which he was held. | 

Charles, who was not of a facetious turn, did not shine at. 
the wedding. He answered feebly to the puns, doubles entendres, 
compliments, and chaff that it was felt a duty to let off at him 
as soon as the soup appeared. 

The next day, on the other hand, he seemed another man, 
It was he who might rather have been taken for the virgin of 
the evening before, whilst the bride gave no sign that revealed 
anything. The shrewdest did not know what to make of it, and 
they looked at her when she passed near them with an un- 
bounded concentration of mind. But Charles concealed nothing. 
He called her “my wife,” tutoyéd her, asked for her of every 
one, looked for her everywhere, and often he dragged her into 
the yards, where he could be seen from far between the trees, 
putting his arm round her waist, and walking half-bending over 
her, ruffling the chemisette of her bodice with his head. 


MADAME BOVARY 23 


Two days after the wedding the married pair left. Charles, 
on account of his patients, could not be away longer. Old 
/Rouault had them driven back in his cart, and himself accom- 
panied them as far as Vassonville. Here he embraced his 
jJdaughter for the last time, got down, and went his way. When 
{he had gone about a hundred paces he stopped, and as he saw 
the cart disappearing, its wheels turning in the dust, he gave a 
{deep sigh. Then he remembered his wedding, the old times, 
|the first pregnancy of his wife; he, too, had been very happy 
ithe day when he had taken her from her father to his home, 
jand had carried her off on a pillion, trotting through the snow, 
for it was near Christmas-time, and the country was all white. 
, She held him by one arm, her basket hanging from the other; 
the wind blew the long lace of her Cauchois head-dress so that 
it sometimes flapped across his mouth, and when he turned his 
jhead he saw near him, on his shoulder, her little rosy face, 
smiling silently under the gold bands of her cap. To warm her 
jhands she put them from time to time in his breast. How long 
ago it all was! Their son would have been thirty by now. 
|Then he looked back and saw nothing on the road. He felt 
jdreary as an empty house; and tender memories mingling with 
) the sad thoughts in his brain, addled by the fumes of the feast, 
he felt inclined for a moment to take a turn towards the 
church. As he was afraid, however, that this sight would 
make him yet more sad, he went right away home. 

Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes about six 
jo’clock. The neighbours came to the windows to see thei 
jdoctor’s new wife. 
|| The old servant presented herself, curtsied to her, apologised 
for not having dinner ready, and suggested that madame, in 
the meantime, should look over her house. 





We 


HE brick front was just in a line with the street, or rather 
the road. Behind the door hung a cloak with a smaitt 
collar, a bridle, and a black leather cap, and on the floor, in a 

jcorner, were a pair of leggings, still covered with dry mud. On 

\the right was the one apartment, that was both dining and 

JI ARRAS e 

sitting room. A canary-yellow paper, relieved at the top by a 

‘garland of pale flowers, was puckered everywhere over the 

| padly-stretched canvas; white calico curtains with a red border 
hung crossways the length of the window; and on the narrow 





\// would be done with them if she were to die. 


24 MADAME BOVARY 


mantelpiece a clock with a head of Hippocrates shone resplend- 
ent betwen two plate candlesticks under oval shades. On the 
other side of the passage was Charles’ consulting-room, a little) 
room about six paces wide, with a table, three chairs, and an 
office-chair. Volumes of the “Dictionary of Medical Science,” 
uncut, but the binding rather the worse for the successive sales 
through which they had gone, occupied almost alone the six 
shelves of a deal bookcase. The smell of melted butter pene- 
trated through the walls when he saw patients, just as in the 
kitchen one could hear the people coughing in the consulting- 
room and recounting their whole histories. Then, opening on 
the yard, where the stable was, came a large dilapidated room 
with a stove, now used as a wood-house, cellar, and pantry, full 
of old rubbish, of empty casks, agricultural implements past} 
service, and a mass of dusty things whose use it was impossible} 
to guess. 

The garden, longer than wide, ran between two mud walls: 
with espaliered apricots, to a hawthorn hedge that separated it! 
from the field. In the middle was a slate sundial on a brick 
pedestal; four flower-beds with eglantines surrounded sym-) 
metrically the more useful kitchen-garden bed. Right at the) 
bottom, under the spruce bushes, was a curé in plaster reading! 
his breviary. 

Emma went upstairs. The first room was not furnished, but! 
in the second, which was their bedroom, was a mahogany beé-) 
stead in an alcove with red drapery. A shell-box adorned the 
chest of drawers, and on the secretary near the window a 
bouquet of orange blossoms tied with white satin ribbons stood) 
in a bottle. It was a bride’s bouquet; it was the other one’s. 
She looked at it. Charles noticed it; he took it and carried it 
/up to the attic, while Emma seated in an armchair (they were 
‘putting her things down around her) thought of her bridal 
‘flowers packed up in a bandbox, and wondered, dreaming, what 


During the first days she occupied herself in thinking about 
changes in the house. She took the shades off the candle- 
sticks, had new wall-paper put up, the staircase repainted, and 
seats made in the garden round the sundial; she even inquired 
how she could get a basin with a jet fountain and fishes. Finally 
her husband, knowing that she liked to drive out, picked up 
a second-hand dogcart, which, with new lamps and a splash- 
board in striped leather, looked almost like a tilbury. 

He was happy then, and without a care in the world. A me 
together, a walk in the evening on the highroad, a gesture of 
her hands over her hair, the sight of her straw hat hanginj:|' 





MADAME BOVARY 25 


from the window-fastener, and many another thing in which 
Charles had never dreamed of pleasure, now made up the 
endless round of his happiness. In bed, in the morning, by her 
side, on the pillow, he watched the sunlight sinking into the 
down on her fair cheek, half hidden by the lappets of her night- 
cap. Seen thus closely, her eyes looked to him enlarged, 
especially when, on waking up, she opened and shut them 
rapidly many times. Black in the shade, dark blue in broad 
daylight, they had, as it were, depths of different colours, that, 
darker in the centre, grew paler towards the surface of the eye. 
His own eyes lost themselves in these depths; he saw himself 
in miniature down to the shoulders, with his handkerchief 
round his head and the top of his shirt open. He rose. She 
came to the window to’see him off, and stayed leaning on the 
sill between two pots of geranium, clad in her dressing-gown 
hanging loosely about her. Charles, in the street, buckled his 
spurs, his foot on the mounting stone, while she talked to him 
from above, picking with her mouth some scrap of flower or 
leaf that she blew out at him. Then this, eddying, floating, 
described semicircles in the air like a bird, and was caught 
before it reached the ground in the ill-groomed mane of the 
old white mare standing motionless at the door. Charles from 
horseback threw her a kiss; she answered with a nod; she 
shut the window, and he set off. And then along the highroad, 
spreading out its long ribbon of dust, along the deep lanes that 
the trees bent over as in arbours, along paths where the corn 
reached to the knees, with the sun on his back and the morning 
air in his nostrils, his heart full of the joys of the past night, 
his mind at rest, his flesh at ease, he went on, re-chewing his 
happiness, like those who after dinner taste again the truffles 
which they are digesting. 

Until now what good had he had of his life? His time at 
school, when he remained shut up within the high walls, alone, 
in the midst of companions richer than he or cleverer at their 
work, who laughed at his accent, who jeered at his clothes, and 
whose mothers came to the school with cakes in their muffs? 
Later on, when he studied medicine, and never had his purse 
full enough to treat some little work-girl who would have 
become his mistress? Afterwards, he had lived fourteen 
months with the widow, whose feet in bed were cold as icicles. 
But now he had for life this beautiful woman whom he adored. 
For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference 
of her petticoat, and he reproached himself with not loving 
her. He wanted to see her again; he turned back quickly, ran 
‘up the stairs with a beating heart. Emma, in her room, was 


26 MADAME BOVARY 


dressing; he came up on tiptoe, kissed her back; she gave a 
cry. 

He could not keep from constantly touching her comb, her 
rings, her fichu; sometimes he gave her great sounding kisses 
with all his mouth on her cheeks, or else little kisses in a 
row all along her bare arm from the tip of her fingers up to 
her shoulder, and she put him away half-smiling, half-vexed, 
as you do a child who hangs about you. 

Before marriage she thought herself in love; but the happi- 
ness that should have followed this love not having come, she 
must, she thought, have been mistaken. And Emma tried -to— 
find out what one meant exactly in life by the words felicity, 
passion, rapture, that had seemed to her so beautiful in books. 


VI 


HE had read “Paul and Virginia,” and she had dreamed of 

the little bamboo-house, the nigger Domingo, the dog Fidéle, 

but above all of the sweet friendship of some dear little brother, 

who seeks red fruit for you on trees taller than steeples, or who 
runs barefoot over the sand, bringing you a bird’s nest. 

When she was thirteen, her father himself took her to town 
to place her in the convent. They stopped at an inn in the St. 
Gervais quarter, where, at their supper, they used painted plates 
that set forth the story of Mademoiselle de la Valliére. The 
explanatory legends, chipped here and there by the scratching 
of knives, all glorified religion, the tendernesses of the heart, 
and the pomps of court. 

Far from being bored at first at the convent, she took pleasure 
in the society of the good sisters, who, to amuse her, took her 
to the chapel, which one entered from the refectory by a long 
corridor. She played very little during recreation hours, knew 
her catechism well, and it was she who always answered Mon- 
sieur le Vicaire’s difficult questions. Living thus, without ever 
leaving the warm atmosphere of the class-rooms, and amid 
these pale-faced women wearing rosaries with brass crosses, she 
was softly lulled by the mystic languor exhaled in the per- 
fumes of the altar, the freshness of the holy water, and the 
lights of the tapers. Instead of attending to mass, she looked 
at the pious vignettes with their azure borders in her book, and 
she loved the sick lamb, the sacred heart pierced with sharp 
arrows, or the poor Jesus sinking beneath the cross he carries. 


MADAME BOVARY 27 


She tried, by way of mortification, to eat nothing a whole day. 
She puzzled her head to find some vow to fulfil. 

When she went to confession, she invented little sins in order 
that she might stay there longer, kneeling in the shadow, her 
hands joined, her face against the grating beneath the whispering 
of the priest. The comparisons of betrothed, husband, celestial » 
lover, and eternal marriage, that recur in sermons, stirred within 
her soul depths of unexpected sweetness. 

In the evening, before prayers, there was some religious 
reading in the study. On week-nights it was some abstract 
of sacred history or the Lectures of the Abbé Frayssinous, and 
on Sundays passages from the “Génie du Christianisme,” as a 
recreation. How she listened at first to the sonorous lamenta- 
tions of its romantic melancholies re-echoing through the world 
and eternity! If her childhood had been spent in the shop- 
parlour of some business quarter, she might perhaps have 
opened her heart to those lyrical invasions of Nature, which 
usually come to us only through translation in books. But she 
knew the country too well; she knew the lowing of cattle, the 
milking, the ploughs. Accustomed to calm aspects of life, she 
turned, on the contrary, to those of excitement. She loved 
the sea only for the sake of its storms, and the green fields 
only when broken up by ruins. She wanted to get some per- 
sonal profit out of things, and she rejected as useless all that 
did not contribute to the immediate desires of her heart, being 
of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, looking for 
emotions, not landscapes. 

At the convent there was an old maid who came for a week 
each month to mend the linen. Patronised by the clergy, be- 
cause she belonged to an ancient family of noblemen ruined by 
the Revolution, she dined in the refectory at the table of the 
good sisters, and after the meal had a bit of chat with them 
before going back to her work. The girls often slipped out 
‘from the study to go and see her. She knew by heart the love- 
songs of the last century, and sang them in a low voice as she 
stitched away. She told stories, gave them news, went errands 
in the town, and on the sly lent the big girls some novel, that 
she always carried in the pockets of her apron, and of which 
the good lady herself swallowed long chapters in the intervals 
of her work. They were all love, lovers, sweethearts, persecuted 
ladies fainting in lonely pavilions, postilions killed at every 
stage, horses ridden to death on every page, sombre forests, 
heart-aches, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, little skiffs by moon- 
light, nightingales in shady groves, “gentlemen” brave as lions, 
gentle as lambs, virtuous as no one ever was, always well 


38 MADAME BOVARY 


dressed, and weeping like fountains. For six months, then, 
Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books 
from old lending libraries. With Walter Scott, later on, she 
fell in love with historical events, dreamed of old chests, guard- 
rooms and minstrels. She would have liked to live in some old 
manor-house, like those long-waisted chatelaines who, in the 
shade of pointed arches, spent their days leaning on the stone, 
chin in hand, watching a cavalier with white plume galloping 
on his black horse from the distant fields. At this time she 
had a cult for Mary Stuart and enthusiastic veneration for 
illustrious or unhappy women. Joan of Arc, Héloise, Agnés 
Sorel, the beautiful Ferroniére, and Clémence Isaure stood out 
to her like comets in the dark immensity of heaven, where also 
were seen, lost in shadow, and all unconnected, St. Louis with 
his oak, the dying Bayard, some cruelties of Louis XI, a little of 
St. Bartholomew’s, the plume of the Béarnais, and always the 
remembrance of the plates painted in honour of Louis XIV. 

In the music-class, in the ballads she sang, there was nothing 
but little angels with golden wings, madonnas, lagunes, gon- 
doliers ;—mild compositions that allowed her to catch a glimpse 
athwart the obscurity of style and the weakness of the music 
of the attractive phantasmagoria of sentimental realities. Some 
of her companions brought “keepsakes” given them as new 
year’s gifts to the convent. These had to be hidden; it was 
quite an undertaking; they were read in the dormitory. Deli- 
cately handling the beautiful satin bindings, Emma looked with 
dazzled eyes at the names of the unknown authors, who had 
signed their verses for the most part as counts or viscounts. 

She tremb!ed as she blew back the tissue paper over the 
engraving and saw it folded in two and fall gently against the 
page. Here behind the balustrade of a balcony was a young 
man in a short cloak, holding in his arms a young girl in a 
white dress wearing an alms-bag at her belt; or there were 
nameless portraits of English ladies with fair curls, who looked 
at you from under their round straw hats with their large clear 
eyes. Some there were lounging in their carriages, gliding 
through parks, a greyhound bounding along in front of the 
equipage, driven at a trot by two small postilions in white 
breeches. Others, dreaming on sofas with an open letter, gazed 
at the moon through a slightly open window half draped by a 
black curtain. The naive ones, a tear on their cheeks, were 
kissing doves through the bars of a Gothic cage, or, smiling, 
their heads on one side, were plucking the leaves of a mar- 
guerite with their taper fingers, that curved at the tips like 
peaked shoes. And you, too, were there, Sultans with long 





MADAME BOVARY 29 


pipes reclining beneath arbours in the arms of Bayaderes; 
Djiaours, Turkish sabres, Greek caps; and you especially, pale 
landscapes of dithyrambic lands, that often show us at once 
palm-trees and firs, tigers on the right, a lion to the left, Tartar 
minarets on the horizon; the whole framed by a very neat 
virgin forest, and with a great perpendicular sunbeam trembling 
in the water, where, standing out in relief like white excoriations 
on a steel-grey ground, swans are swimming about. 

And the shade of the argand lamp fastened to the wall above 
Emma’s head lighted up all these pictures of the world, that 
passed before her one by one in the silence of the dormitory, 
and to the distant noise of some belated carriage rolling over 
the Boulevards. 

When her mother died she cried much the first few days. 
She had a funeral picture made with the hair of the deceased, 
and, in a letter sent to the Bertaux full of sad reflections on 
life, she asked to be buried later on in the same grave. The 
goodman thought she must be ill, and came to see her. Emma 
was secretly pleased that she had reached at a first attempt the 
rare ideal of pale lives, never attained by mediocre hearts. She 
let herself glide along with Lamartine meanderings, listened to 
harps on lakes, to all the songs of dying swans, to the falling 
of the leaves, the pure virgins ascending to heaven, and the 
voice of the Eternal discoursing down the valleys. She wearied 
of it, would not confess it, continued from habit, and at last 
was surprised to feel herself soothed, and with no more sadness 
at heart than wrinkles on her brow. 

The good nuns, who had been so sure of her vocation, per- 
ceived with great astonishment that Mademoiselle Rouault seemed 
to be slipping from them. They had indeed been so lavish to 
her of prayers, retreats, novenas, and sermons, they had so 
often preached the respect due to saints and martyrs, and given 
so much good advice as to the modesty of the body and the 
salvation of her soul, that she did as tightly reigned horses: 
she pulled up short and the bit slipped from her teeth. This 
nature, positive in the midst of its enthusiasms, that had loved 
the church for the sake of the flowers, and music for the words 
of the songs, and literature for its passional stimulus, rebelled 
against the mysteries of faith as it grew irritated by disci- 
pline, a thing antipathetic to her constitution. When her father 
took her from school, no one was sorry to see her go, The 
Lady Superior even thought that she had latterly been somewhat 
irreverent to the community. 

Emma at home once more, first took pleasure in looking after 
the servants, then grew disgusted with the country and missed 


30 MADAME BOVARY 


her convent. When Charles came to the Bertaux for the first 
time, she thought herself quite disillusioned, with nothing more 
to learn, and nothing more to feel. 

But the uneasiness of her new position, or perhaps the dis- 
turbance caused by the presence of this man, had sufficed to 
make her believe that she at last felt that wondrous passion 
which, till then, like a great bird with rose-coloured wings, 
hung in the splendour of the skies of poesy; and now she could 
not think that the calm in which she lived was the happiness 
she had dreamed. 


Vil 


SHE thought, sometimes, that, after all, this was the happiest 
time of her life—the honeymoon, as people called it. To 
taste the full sweetness of it, it would have been necessary 
doubtless to fly to those lands with sonorous names where the 
days after marriage are full of laziness most suave. In post- 
chaises behind blue silken curtains to ride slowly up steep roads, 
listening to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the moun- 
tains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled sound of 
a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs to breathe in the 
perfume of lemon-trees; then in the evening on the villa-ter- 
races above, hand in hand to look at the stars, making plans for 
the future. It seemed to her that certain places on earth must 
bring happiness, as a plant peculiar to the soil, and that cannot 
thrive elsewhere. Why could not she lean over balconies in 
Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch cottage, 
with a husband dressed in a black velvet coat with long tails, 

.and thin shoes, a pointed hat and frills? 

Perhaps she would have liked to confide all these things to 
- some one. But how tell an undefinable uneasiness, variable as 
the clouds, unstable as the winds? Words failed her—the 

\opportunity, the courage. 

) If Charles had but wished it, if he had guessed it, if his 
/ look had but once met her thought: it seemed to her. that a 
' sudden plenty would have gone out from her heart, as the 
| fruit falls from a tree when shaken by a hand. But as the 
‘intimacy of their life became deeper, the greater became the 
\gulf that separated her from him. | 

Charles’s conversation was commonplace as a street pave- 
ment, and every one’s ideas trooped through it in their every- 
day garb, without exciting emotion, laughter, or thought. He 


MADAME BOVARY 31) 


had never had the curiosity, he said, while he lived at Rouen, 
to go to the theatre to see the actors from Paris. He could 
neither swim, nor fence, nor shoot, and one day he could not 
explain some term of horsemanship to her that she had come 
across in a novel. 

| A man, on the contrary, should he not know everything, excel 
in manifold activities, initiate you into the energies of passion, 
the refinements of life, all mysteries? But this one taught 
nothing, knew nothing, wished nothing. He thought her happy; 
and she resented this easy calm, this serene heaviness, the very 
happiness she gave him. 

Sometimes she would draw; and it was great amusement to 
‘Charles to stand there bolt upright and watch her bend over 
her cardboard, with eyes half-closed the better to see her 
work, or rolling, between her fingers, little bread-pellets. As 
to the piano, the more quickly her fingers glided over it the 
more he wondered. She struck the notes with aplomb, and ran 
from top to bottom of the keyboard without a break. Thus 
shaken up, the old instrument, whose strings buzzed, could be 
heard at the other end of the village when the window was 
open, and often the bailiff’s clerk, passing along the highroad 
bare-headed and in list slippers, stopped to listen, his sheet of 
paper in his hand. 

Emma, on the other hand, knew how to look after her house 
She sent the patients’ accounts in well-phrased letters that had 
no suggestion of a bill. When they had a neighbour to dinner 
on Sundays, she managed to have some tasty dish—piled up 
pyramids of green-gages on vine leaves, served up preserves 
turned out into plates—and even spoke of buying finger-glasses 
for dessert. From all this much consideration was extended to 
Bovary. 

Charles finished by rising in his own esteem for possessing 
such a wife. He showed with pride in the sitting-room two 
small pencil sketches by her that he had had framed in very 
large frames, and hung up against the wall-paper by long green 
cords. People returning from mass saw him at his door in his 
wool-work slippers. 

He came home late—at ten o’clock, at midnight sometimes. 
Then he asked for something to eat, and as the servant had 
gone to bed, Emma waited on him. He took off his coat to 
dine more at his ease. He told her, one after the other, the 
people he had met, the villages where he had been, the pre- 
scriptions he had written, and, well pleased with himself, he 
finished the remainder of the boiled beef and onions, picked 
pieces off the cheese, munched an apple, emptied his water- 


™~ 


‘82 MADAME BOVARY 


bottle, and then went to bed, and lay on his back and snored. 

As he had been for a time accustomed to wear nightcaps, 
his handkerchief would not keep down over his ears, so that 
his hair in the morning was all tumbled pell-mell about his 
face and whitened with the feathers of the pillow, whose 
strings came untied during the night. He always wore thick 
boots that had two long creases over the instep running 
obliquely towards the ankle, while the rest of the upper con- 
tinued in a straight line as if stretched on a wooden foot. He 
said that “was quite good enough tor the country.” 

His mother approved of his econumy, for she came to see him 
as formerly when there had been some violent row at her place; 
and yet Madame Bovary senior seemed prejudiced against her 
daughter-in-law. She thought “her ways too fine for their 
position”; the wood, the sugar, and the candles disappeared as 
“at a grand establishment,” and the amount of firing in the 
kitchen would have been enough for twenty-five courses. She 
put her linen in order for her in the presses, and taught her 
to keep: an eye on the butcher when he brought the meat. 
Emma put up with these lessons. *fadame Bovary was lavish 
of them; and the words “daughter” and “mother” were ex- 
changed all day long, accompanied by little quiverings of the 
lips, each one uttering gentle words in a voice trembling with 
anger. 

In Madame Dubuc’s time the old woman felt that she was 
still the favourite; but now the love of Charles for Emma 
seemed to her a desertion from her tenderness, an encroach- 
ment upon what was hers, and she watched her son’s happiness 
in sad silence, as a ruined man looks through the windows at 
people dining in his old house. She recalled to him as remem- 
brances her troubles and her sacrifices, and, comparing these 
with Emma’s negligence, came to the conclusion that it was! 
not reasonable to adore her so exclusively. . 

Charles knew not what to answer: he respected his mother, 
and he loved his wife infinitely; he considered the judgment 
of the one infallible, and yet he thought the conduct of the 
other irreproachable. When Madame Bovary had gone, he 
tried timidly and in the same terms to hazard one or two of the 
more anodyne observations he had heard from his mamma. 
Emma proved to him with a word that he was mistaken, and 
sent him off to his patients. 

And yet, in accord with theories she believed right, she 
wanted to make herself in love with him. By moonlight in the 
garden she recited all the passionate rhymes she knew by heart, 
and, sighing, sang to him many melancholy adagios; but she 


MADAME BOVARY 33 


found herself as calm after this as before, and Charles seemed 
no more amorous and no more moved. 

When she had thus for a while struck the flint on her heart 
without getting a spark, incapable, moreover, of understanding 
what she did not experience as of believing anything that did 
not present itself in conventional forms, she persuaded herself 
without difficulty that Charles’s passion was nothing very exor- 
bitant. His outbursts became regular; he embraced her at 
certain fixed times. It was one habit among other habits, and, 
like a dessert, looked forward to after the monotony of dinner. 

A gamekeeper, cured by the doctor of inflammation of the 
lungs, had given madame a little Italian greyhound; she took 
her out walking, for she went out sometimes in order to be 
alone for a moment, and not to see before her eyes the eternal 
garden and the dusty road. She went as far as the beeches of 
Banneville, near the deserted pavilion which forms an angle of 
the wall on the side of the country. Amidst the vegetation of 
the ditch there are long reeds with leaves that cut you. 

She began by looking round her to see if nothing had changed 
since last she had been there. She found again in the same 
places the foxgloves and wallflowers, the beds of nettles growing 
round the big stones, and the patches of lichen along the three 
windows, whose shutters, always closed, were rotting away on 
their rusty iron bars. Her thoughts, aimless at first, wandered 
at random, like her greyhound, who ran round and round in 
the fields, yelping after the yellow butterflies, chasing the shrew- 
mice, or nibbling the poppies on the edge of a cornfield. Then 
gradually her ideas took definite shape, and, sitting on the grass 
that she dug up with little prods of her sunshade, Emma re- 
peated to herself, “Good heavens! why did I marry?” 

She asked herself if by some other chance combination it 
would not have been possible to meet another man; and she 
tried to imagine what would have been these unrealised events, 
this different life, this unknown husband. All, surely, could not 
be like this one. He might have been handsome, witty dis- 
tinguished, attractive, such as, no doubt, her old companions 
of the convent had married. What were they doing now? In 
town, with the noise of the streets, the buzz of the theatres, 
and the lights of the ball-room, they were living lives where 
the heart expands, the senses bourgeon out. But she—her life 
was cold as a garret whose dormer-window looks on the north, 
and ‘ennui, the silent spider, was weaving its web in the dark- 
ness in every corner of her heart) She recalled the prize-days, 
when she mounted the platform to receive her little crowns, 
with her hair in long plaits. In her white frock and open 


34 ; MADAME BOVARY 


prunella shoes she had a pretty way, and when she went back 
to her seat, the gentlemen bent over her to congratulate her; 
the courtyard was full of carriages; farewells were called to 
her through their windows; the music-master with his violin- 
case bowed in passing by. How far off all this! How far 
away! 

She called Djali, took her between her knees, and smoothed 
the long, delicate head, saying, “Come, kiss mistress; you have 
no troubles.” 

Then noting the melancholy face of the graceful animal, who 
yawned slowly, she softened, and comparing her to herself, 
spoke to her aloud as to somebody in trouble whom one is con- 
soling. 

Occasionally there came gusts of wind, breezes from the sea 
rolling in one sweep over the whole plateau of the Caux 
country, which brought even to these fields a salt freshness. 
The rushes, close to the ground, whistled; the branches 
trembled in a swift rustling, while their summits, ceaselessly 
swaying, kept up a deep murmur. Emma drew her shawl 
round her shoulders and rose. 

In the avenue a green light dimmed by the leaves lit up the 
short moss that crackled softly beneath her feet. The sun was 
setting; the sky showed red between the branches, and the 
trunks of the trees, uniform, and planted in a straight line, 
seemed a brown colonnade standing out against a background 
of gold. A fear took hold of her; she called Djali, and hur- 
riedly returned to Tostes by the highroad, threw herself into 
an arm-chair, and for the rest of the evening did not speak. 

But towards the end of September something extraordinary 
fell upon her life; she was invited by the Marquis d’Ander- 
villiers to Vaubyessard, 

Secretary of State under the Restoration, the Marquis, anx- 
ious to re-enter political life, set about preparing for his can- 
didature to the Chamber of Deputies long beforehand. In the 
winter he distributed a great deal of wood, and in the Conseil 
Général always enthusiastically demanded new roads for his 
arrondissement. During the dog-days he had suffered from 
an abscess, which Charles had cured as if by miracle by giving 
a timely little touch with the lancet. The steward sent to 
Tostes to pay for the operation reported in the evening that 
he had seen some superb cherries in the doctor’s little garden. 
Now cherry-trees did not thrive at Vaubyessard; the Marquis 
asked Bovary for some slips; made it his business to thank 
him personally; saw Emma; thought she had a pretty figure, 
and that she did not bow like a peasant: so that he did nat 


MADAME BOVARY 35 


think he was going beyond the bounds of condescension, nor, 
on the other hand, making a mistake, in inviting the young 
couple. 

One Wednesday at three o’clock, Monsieur and Madame 
Bovary, seated in their dog-cart, set out for Vaubyessard, with 
a great trunk strapped on behind and a bonnet-box in front 
on the apron. Besides these Charles held a bandbox between 
his knees. 

They arrived at nightfall, just as the lamps in the park were 
being lit to show the way for the carriages. 


VIIl 


THE chateau, a modern building in Italian style, with two 

projecting wings and three flights of steps, lay at the foot 
of an immense green-sward, on which some cows were grazing 
among groups of large trees set out at regular intervals, while 
large beds of arbutus, rhododendron, syringas, and guelder 
roses bulged out their irregular clusters of green along the 
curve of the gravel path. A river flowed under a bridge; 
through the mist one could distinguish buildings with thatched 
roofs scattered over the field bordered by two gently-sloping 
well-timbered hillocks, and in the background amid the trees rose 
in two parallel lines the coach-houses and stables, all that was 
left of the ruined old chateau. 

Charles’s dog-cart pulled up before the middle flight of 
steps; servants appeared; the Marquis came forward, and 
offering his arm to the doctor’s wife, conducted her to the 
vestibule. 

It was paved with marble slabs, was very lofty, and the 
sound of footsteps and that of voices re-echoed through it 
as in a church. Opposite rose a straight staircase, and on 
the left a gallery overlooking the garden led to the billiard- 
room, through whose door one could hear the click of the 
ivory balls. As she crossed it to go to the drawing-room, 
Emma saw standing round the table men with grave faces, 
their chins resting on high cravats. They all wore orders, and 
smiled silently as they made their strokes. On the dark wain- 
scoting of the walls large gold frames bore at the bottom names 
written in black letters. She read: “Jean-Antoine d’Ander- 
villiers d’Yverbonville, Count de la Vaubyessard and Baron de 
la Fresnaye, killed at the battle of Coutras on the 2oth of 
October 1587.” And on another: “Jean-Antoine-Henry-Guy 


36 MADAME BOVARY 


d’Andervilliers de la Vaubyessard, Admiral of France and 
Chevalier of the Order of St. Michael, wounded at the battle of 
_the Hougue-Saint-Vaast on the 209th of May 1692; died at 
Vaubyessard on the 23rd of January 1693.” One could hardly 
make out those that followed, for the light of the lamps low- 
ered over the green cloth threw a dim shadow round the room. 
Burnishing the horizontal pictures, it broke up against these 
in delicate lines where there were cracks in the varnish, and 
from all these great black squares framed in with gold stood 
out here and there some lighter portion of the painting—a 
pale brow, two eyes that looked at you, perukes flowing over 
and powdering red-coated shoulders, or the buckle of a garter 
above a well-rounded calf. 

The Marquis opened the drawing-room door; one of the 
ladies (the Marchioness herself) came to meet Emma. She 
made her sit down by her on an ottoman, and began talking 
to her as amicably as if she had known her a long time. She 
was a woman of about forty, with fine shoulders, a hook nose, 
a drawling voice, and on this evening she wore over her brown 
hair a simple guipure fichu that fell in a point at the back. 
A fair young woman was by a side in a high-backed chair, 
and gentlemen with flowers in their button-holes were talking 
to ladies round the fire. 

At seven dinner was served. The men, who were in the 
majority, sat down at the first table in the vestibule; the 
ladies at the second in the dining-room with the Marquis 
and Marchioness. 

Emma, on entering, felt herself wrapped round by the warm 
air, a blending of the perfume of flowers and of the fine linen, 
of the fumes of the viands, and the odour of the truffles. The 
silver dish-covers reflected the lighted wax candles in the 
candelabra, the cut crystal covered with light steam reflected 
from one to the cther pale rays; bouquets were placed in a 
row the whole length of the table; and in the large-bordered 
plates each napkin, arranged after the fashion of a bishop’s 
mitre, held between its two gaping folds a small oval-shaped 
roll. The red claws of lobsters hung over the dishes; rich fruit 
in open baskets was piled up on moss; there were quails in 
their plumage; smoke was rising; and in silk stockings, knee- 
breeches, white cravat, and frilled shirt, the steward, grave as 
a judge, offering ready-carved dishes between the shoulders 
of the guests, with a touch of the spoon gave you the piece 
chosen. On the large stove of porcelain inlaid with copper 
baorettes the statue of a woman, draped to the chin, gazed 
motior ess on the room full cf Ife. 


MADAME BOVARY 37 


Madame Bovary noticed that many ladies had not put their 
gloves in their glasses. 

But at the upper end of the table, along amongst all these 
women, bent over his full plate, and his napkin tied round 
his neck like a child, an old man sat eating, letting drops of 
gravy drip from his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, and 
he wore a little queue tied with a black ribbon. He was the 
Marquis’s father-in-law, the old Duke de Laverdiére, once on a 
time favourite of the Count d’Artois, in the days of the Vau- 

reuil hunting-parties at the Marquis de Conflans’, and had been, 
it was said, the lover of Queen Marie Antoinette, between 
Monsieur de Coigny and Monsieur de Lauzun. He had lived 
a life of noisy debauch, full of duels, bets, elopements; he had 
squandered his fortune and frightened all his family. A serv- 
ant behind his chair named aloud to him in his ear the dishes 
that he pointed to stammering, and constantly Emma’s eyes 
turned involuntarily to this old man with hanging lips, as 
to something extraordinary. He had lived at court and slept 
in the bed of queens! 

Iced champagne was poured out. Emma shivered all over as 
she felt it cold in her mouth. She had never seen pomegranates 
nor tasted pine-apples. The powdered sugar even seemed to 
her whiter and finer than elsewhere. 

The ladies afterwards went to their rooms to prepare for 

the ball. 
_ Emma made her toilet with the fastidious care of an actress 
on her début. She did her hair according to the directions of 
the hairdresser, and put on the barege dress spread out upon 
the bed. Charles’s trousers were tight across the belly. 

“My trouser-straps will be rather awkward for dancing,” 
he said. 

“Dancing?” repeated Emma. 

“Ves i? 

“Why, you must be mad! They would make fun of you; 
keep your place. Besides, it is more becoming for a doctor,” 
she added. 

Charles was silent. He walked up and down waiting fo1 
Emma to finish dressing. 

He saw her from behind in the glass between two lights. 
Her black eyes seemed blacker than ever. Her hair, undu- 
lating towards the ears, shone with a blue lustre; a rose in 
her chignon trembled on its mobile stalk, with artificial dew- 
drops on the tip of the leaves. She wore a gown of pale 
saffron trimmed with three bouquets of pompon roses mixed 
with green. 





38 MADAME BOVARY 


Charles came and kissed her on her shoulder. 

“Let me alone!” she said; “you are tumbling me.” 

One could hear the flourish of the violin and the notes of a 
horn. She went downstairs restraining herself from running. 

Dancing had begun. Guests were arriving. There was some 
crushing. She sat down on a form near the door. 

The quadrille over, the floor was occupied by groups of men 
standing up and talking and servants in livery bearing large 
trays. Along the line of seated women painted fans were 
fluttering, bouquets half-hid smiling faces, and gold-stoppered 
scent-bottles were turned in partly-closed hands, whose white 
gloves outlined the nails and tightened on the flesh at the 
wrists. Lace trimmings, diamond brooches, medallion bracelets 
trembled on bodices, gleamed on breasts, clinked on bare arms. 
The hair, well smoothed over the temples and knotted at the 
nape, bore crowns, or bunches, or sprays of myosotis, jasmine, 
pomegranate blossoms, ears of corn, and corn-flowers. Calmly 
seated in their places, mothers with forbidding countenances 
were wearing red turbans. 

Emma’s heart beat rather faster when, her partner holding 
her by the tips of the fingers, she took her place in a line with 
the dancers, and waited for the first note to start. But her 
emotion soon vanished, and, swaying to the rhythm of the 
orchestra, she glided forward with slight movements of the 
neck. A smile rose to her lips at certain delicate phrases of the 
violin, that sometimes played alone while the other instruments 
were silent; one could hear the clear clink of the louis d’or 
that were being thrown down upon the card-tables in the next 
room; then all struck in again, the cornet-a-piston uttered its 
sonorous note, feet marked time, skirts swelled and rustled, 
hands touched and parted; the same eyes falling before you 
met yours again. 

A few men (some fifteen or so), of twenty-five to forty, 
scattered here and there among the dancers or talking at the 
doorways, distinguished themselves from the crowd by a cer- 
tain air of breeding, whatever their differences in age, dress, 
or face. 

Their clothes, better made, seemed of finer cloth, and their 
hair, brought forward in curls towards the temples, glossy with 
more delicate pomades. They had the complexion of wealth, 
—that clear complexion that is heightened by the pallor of 
porcelain, the shimmer of satin, the veneer of old furniture, 
and that an ordered regimen of exquisite nurture maintains 
at its best. Their necks moved easily in their low cravats, 
their long whiskers fell over their turned-down collars, they 


MADAME BOVARY 39 


wiped their lips upon handkerchiefs with embroidered initials 
that gave forth a subtle perfume. Those who were beginning 
to grow old had an air of youth, while there was something 
mature in the faces of the young. In their unconcerned looks 
was the calm of passions daily satiated, and through all their 
gentleness of manner pierced that peculiar brutality, the result 
of a command of half-easy things, in which force is exercised 
and vanity amused—the management of thoroughbred horses 
and the society of loose women. 

A few steps from Emma a gentleman in a blue coat was talk- 
ing of Italy with a pale young woman wearing a parure of Deas s v 

They were praising the breadth of the columns of St. Peter’s, 
Tivoli, Vesuvius, Castellamare, and Cassines, the roses of 
Genoa, the Coliseum by moonlight. With her other ear Emma 
was listening to a conversation full of words she did not under- 
stand. A circle gathered round a very young man who the 
week before had beaten “Miss Arabella” and “Romolus,” amd 
won two thousand louis jumping a ditch in England. One 
complained that his racehorses were growing fat; another of 
the printers’ errors that had disfigured the name of his horse. 

The atmosphere of the ball was heavy; the lamps were grow- 
ing dim. Guests were flocking to the billiard-room. A servant 
got upon a chair and broke the window-panes. At the crash 
of the glass Madame Bovary turned her head and saw in the 
garden the faces of peasants pressed against the window looking 
in at them. Then the memory of the Bertaux came back to 
her. She saw the farm again, the muddy pond, her father 
in a blouse under the apple-trees, and she saw herself again 
as formerly, skimming with her finger the cream off the milk- 
pans in the dairy. But in the .refulgence of the present hour 
her past life, so distinct until then, faded away completely, 
and she almost doubted having lived it. She was there; beyond 
the ball was only shadow overspreading all the rest. She was 
just eating a maraschino ice that she held with her left hand © 
in a silver-gilt cup, her eyes half-closed, and the spoon between 
her teeth. , 

A lady near her dropped her fan. A gentleman was passing. 

“Would you be so good,” said the lady, “as to pick up my fan 
that has fallen behind the sofa?” 

The gentleman bowed, and as he moved to stretch out his 
arm, Emma saw the hand of the young woman throw some- 
thing white, folded in a triangle, into his hat. The gentleman 
picking up the fan, offered it to the lady respectfully; she 
thanked him with an inclination of the head, and began smelling 
her bouquet. 


40 MADAME BOVARY 


After supper, where were plenty of Spanish and Rhine wines, 
soups d@ la bisque and au lait d’amandes, puddings a la Trafal- 
gar, and all sorts of cold meats with jellies that trembled in 
the dishes, the carriages one after the other began to drive 
off. Raising the corners of the muslin curtain, one could see 
the light of their lanterns glimmering through the darkness. 
The seats began to empty, some card-players were still left; the 
musicians were cooling the tips of their fingers on their tongues. 
Charles was half asleep, his back propped against a door. 

At three o’clock the cotillion began. Emma did not know 
how to waltz. Every one was waltzing, Mademoiselle d’Ander- 
villiers herself and the Marquis; only the guests staying at the 
castle were still there, about a dozen persons. 

One of the waltzers, however, who was familiarly called 
Viscount, and whose low cut waistcoat seemed moulded to his 
chest, came a second time to ask Madame Bovary to dance, 
assuring her that he would guide her, and that she would get 
through it very well. 

They began slowly, then went more rapidly. They turned; 
all around them was turning—the lamps, the furniture, the 
wainscoting, the floor, like a disc on a pivot. On passing 
near the doors the bottom of Emma’s dress caught against 
his trousers. Their legs commingled; he looked down at her; 
she raised her eyes to his. A torpor seized her; she stopped. 
They started again, and with a more rapid movement; the 
Viscount, dragging her along, disappeared with her to the end 
of the gallery, where, panting, she almost. fell, and for a 
moment rested her head upon his breast. And then, still turn- 
ing, but more slowly, he guided her back to her seat. She 
leaned back against the wall and covered her eyes with her 
hands. 

When she opened them again, in the middle of the drawing- 
room three waltzers were kneeling before a lady sitting on a 
stool. She chose the Viscount, and the violin struck up once 
more. 

Every one looked at them. They passed and repassed, she 
with rigid body, her chin bent down, and he always in the same 
pose, his figure curved, his elbow rounded, his chin thrown 
forward. That woman knew how to waltz! They kept up a 
long time, and tired out all the others. 

Then they talked a few moments longer, and after the good- 
nights, or rather good-mornings, the guests of the chateau 
retired to bed. 

Charles dragged himself up by the balusters. His “knees 
were goine up into his body.” He had spent five consecutive 


MADAME BOVARY 41 


hours standing bolt upright at the card-tables, watching them 
play whist, without understanding anything about it, and it 
was with a deep sigh of relief that he pulled off his boots. 

Emma threw a shawl over her shoulders, opened the window, 
and leant out. 

The night was dark; some drops of rain were falling. She 
breathed in the damp wind that refreshed her eyelids. The 
music of the ball was still murmuring in her ears, and she 
tried to keep herself awake in order to prolong the illusion 
of this luxurious life that she would soon have to give up. 

Day began to break. She looked long at the windows of 
the chateau, trying to guess which were the rooms of. all 
those she had noticed the evening before. She would fain 
have known their lives, have penetrated, blended with them. 
But she was shivering with cold. She undressed, and cowered 
down between the sheets against Charles, who was asleep. 

There were a great many people to luncheon. The repast 
lasted ten minutes; no liqueurs were served, which astonished 
the doctor. Next, Mademoiselle d’Andervilliers collected some 
pieces of roll in a small basket to take them to the swans on 
the ornamental waters, and they went to walk in the hot-houses, 
where strange plants, bristling with hairs, rose in pyramids 
under hanging vases, whence, as from ovcrfilled nests of ser- 
pents, fell long green cords interlacing. The orangery, which 
was at the other end, led by a covered way to the outhouses 
of the chateau. The Marquis, to amuse the young woman, 
took her to see the stables. Above the basket-shaped racks 
dorcelain slabs bore the names of the horses in black letters. 
Each animal in its stall whisked its tail when any one went near 
and said “Tchk! tchk!” The boards of the harness-room 
shone like the flooring of a drawing-room. The carriage har- 
aess was piled up in the middle against two twisted columns, 
and the bits, the whips, the spurs, the curbs, were ranged in 
1 line all along the wall. 

Charles, meanwhile, went to ask a groom to put his horse to. 
The dog-cart was brought to the foot of the steps, and all the 
yarcels being crammed in, the Bovarys paid their respects to 
the Marquis and Marchioness and set out again for Tostes. 

Emma watched the turning wheels in silence. Charles, on 
the extreme edge of the seat, held the reins with his two arms 
wide apart, and the little horse ambled along in the shafts that 
were too big for him. The loose rcins hanging over his crupper 
were wet with foam, and the box fastened on behind the chaise 
zave great regular bumps against it. 

They were on the heights of Thibourville when suddenly 





42 MADAME BOVARY 


some horsemen with cigars between their lips passed laughing. 
Emma thought she recognised the Viscount, turned back, and 
caught on the horizon only the movement of the heads rising 
or falling with the unequal cadence of the trot or gallop. 

A mile farther on they had to stop to mend with some string 
the traces that had broken. 

But Charles, giving a last look to the harness, saw something 
on the ground between his horse’s legs, and he picked up a 
cigar-case with a green silk border and beblazoned in the 
centre like the door of a carriage. 

“There are even two cigars in it,” said he; “they'll do for 
this evening after dinner.” 

“Why, do you smoke?” she asked. 

“Sometimes, when I get a chance.” 

He put his find in his pocket and whipped up the nag. 

When they reached home the dinner was not ready. Madame 
lost her temper. Nastasie answered rudely. 

“Leave the room!” said Emma. “You are forgetting your- 
self. I give you warning.” 

For dinner there was onion soup and a piece of veal with 
sorrel. Charles, seated opposite Emma, rubbed his hands 
gleefully. 

“How good it is to be at home again!” 

Nastasie could be heard crying. He was rather fond of the 
poor girl. She had formerly, during the wearisome time of his 
widowhood, kept him company many an evening. She had 
been his first patient, his oldest acquaintance in the place. 

“Have you given her warning for good?” he asked at last. 

“Yes. Who is to prevent me?” she replied. 

Then they warmed themselves in the kitchen while their 
room was being made ready. Charles began to smoke. He 
smoked with lips protruded, spitting every moment, recoiling 
at every puff. 

“You'll make yourself ill,” she said scornfully. | 

He put down his cigar and ran to swallow a glass of cold 
water at the pump. Emma seizing hold of the cigar-case threw 
it quickly to the back of the cupboard. 

The next day was a long one. She walked about her little 
garden, up and down the same walks, stopping before the beds, | 
before the espalier, before the plaster curate, looking with 
amazement at all these things of once-on-a-time that she knew] 
so well. How far off the ball seemed already! What was it 
that thus set so far asunder the morning of the day before 
yesterday and the evening of to-day? Her journey to Vau- 
hyessard had made a hole in her life, like one of those great 











MADAME BOVARY 43 


crevasses that a storm will sometimes make in one night in 
mountains.) Still she was resigned. She devoutly put away in 
her drawers her beautiful dress, down to the satin shoes whose 
soles were yellowed with the slippery wax of the dancing 
floor. Her heart was like these. In its friction against wealth 
fsomething had come over it that could not be effaced. 

The memory of this ball, then, became an occupation for 
fEmma. Whenever the Wednesday came round she said to 
Sherself as she awoke, “Ah! I was there a week—a fortnight— 
ithree weeks ago.” And little by little the faces grew con- 
fused in her remembrance. She forgot the tune of the quad- 
tilles; she no longer saw the liveries and appointments so 
distinctly; some details escaped her, but the regret remained 
with her. 


IX 


FTEN when Charles was out she took from the cupboard, 

between the folds of the linen where she had left it, the 
xreen silk cigar-case. She looked at it, opened it, and even 
smelt the odour of the lining—a mixture of verbena and to- 
yacco. Whose was it? The Viscount’s? Perhaps it was a 
yresent from his mistress. It had been embroidered on some 
|; osewood frame, a pretty little thing, hidden from all eyes, 
hat had occupied many hours, and over which had fallen the 
ioft curls of the pensive worker. A breath of love had passed 
yver the stitches on the canvas; each prick of the needle had 
Jixed there a hope or a memory, and all those interwoven 
hreads of silk were but the continuity of the same silent 
vassion. And then one morning the Viscount had taken it 
way with him. Of what had they spoken when it lay upon 
he wide-mantelled chimneys between flower-vases and Pom- 
vadour clocks? She was at Tostes; he was at Paris now, far 
way! What was this Paris like? What a vague name! She 
‘epeated it in a low voice, for the mere pleasure of it; it 
‘ang in her ears like a great cathedral bell; it shone before 
ler eyes, even on the labels of her pomade-pots. 

At night, wher, the carriers passed under her windows in their - 
arts singing the “Marjolaine,” she awoke, and listened to the 
toise of the iron-bound wheels, which, as they gained the 
country road, was soon deadened by the soil. “They will be 
‘here to-morrow!” she said to herself. 

And she followed them in thought up and down the hills, 
raversing villages, gliding along the highroads by the light 


wae 


44 MADAME BOVARY 


of the stars. At the end of some indefinite distance there was 
always a confused spot, into which her dream died. 

She bought a plan of Paris, and with the tip of her finger 
on the map she walked about the capital. She went up the 
boulevards, stopping at every turning, between the lines of the 
streets, in front of the white squares that represented the 
houses. At last she would close the lids of her weary eyes, 
and see in the darkness the gas jets flaring in the wind and 
the steps of carriages lowered with much noise before the 
peristyles of theatres. 

She took in “La Corbeille,” a lady’s journal, and the “Sylphe 
des Salons.” She devoured, without skipping a word, all the 
accounts of first nights, races, and soirées, took an interest 
in the début of a singer, in the opening of a new shop. She 
knew the latest fashions, the addresses of the best tailors, the 
days of the Bois and the Opera. In Eugéne Sue she studied 
descriptions of furniture; she read Balzac and George Sand, 
seeking in them imaginary satisfaction for her own desires.” 
Even at table she had her book by her, and turned over the 
pages while Charles ate and talked to her. The memory of the 
Viscount always returned as she read. Between him and the 
imaginary personages she made comparisons. But the circle 
of which he was the centre gradually widened round him, and 
the aureole that he bore, fading from his form, broadened out 
beyond, lighting up her other dreams. 

Paris, more vague than the ocean, glimmered before Emma’s 
eyes in an atmosphere of vermilion. The many lives that 
stirred amid this tumult were, however, divided into parts, 
classed as distinct pictures. Emme perceived only two or three 
that hid from her all the rest, and in themselves represented 
all humanity. The world of ambassadors moved over polished 
floors in drawing-rooms lined with mirrors, round oval tables 
covered with velvet and gold-fringed cloths. There were 
dresses with trains, deep mysteries, anguish hidden beneath 
smiles. ‘Then came the society of the duchesses; all were pale; 
all got up at four o’clock; the women, poor angels, wore English 
point on their petticoats; and the men, unappreciated geniuses 
under a frivolous outward seeming, rode horses to death at 
pleasure parties, spent the summer season at Baden, and towards 
the forties married heiresses. In the private rooms of restau- 
rants, where one sups after midnight by the light of wax 
candles, laughed the motley crowd of men of letters and 
actresses. They were prodigal as kings, full of ideal, ambi- 
tious, fantastic frenzy. This was an existence outside that of 
alt ‘hers, between heaven and earth, in the midst of storms, 








MADAME BOVARY fe 


having something of the sublime. For the rest of the worl¢ 
it was lost, with no particular place, and as if non-existent 
The nearer things were, moreover, the more her thoughis 
turned away from them. All her immediate surroundings, the 
wearisome country, the middle-class imbeciles, the rm ediocrity 
of existence, seemed to her exceptional, a peculiar ciiance tha 
had caught hold of her, while beyond stretched as far as eyc 
could see an immense land of joys and passions. She confused 
in her desire the sensualities of luxury with the delights of tk- 
heart, elegance of manners with delicacy of sentiment. Did not 
love, like Indian plants, need a special soil, a particular tem- 
perature? Sighs by moonlight, long embraces, tears flowing 
over yielded hands, all the fevers of the flesh and the languors 
of tenderness could not be separated from the balconies c< 
great castles full of indolence, from boudoirs with silken cur- 
tains and thick carpets, well-filled flower-stands, a bed on 2 
raised dais, nor from the flashing of precious stones and the 
shoulder-knots of liveries. 

The lad from the posting-house who came to groom the mare 
every morning passed through the passage with his heavy 
wooden shoes; there were holes in his blouse; his feet were 
bare in list slippers. And this was the groom in knee-breeches 
with whom she had to be content! His work done, he did 
not come back again all day, for Charles on his return put 
up his horse himself, unsaddled him and put on the halter, 
while the servant-girl brought a bundle of straw and threw it 
as best she could into the manger. 

To replace Nastasie (who left Tostes shedding torrents of 
tears) Emma took into her service a young girl of fourteen, 
an orphan with a sweet face. She forbade her wearing cotton, 
caps, taught her to address her in the third person, to bring, 
a glass of water,on a plate, to knock before coming into jo 
room, to iron, starch, and to dress her,—wanted to make ao 
lady’s-maid of her. The new servant obeyed without a mur- 
mur, so as not to be sent away; and as madame usually [2ft 
the key in the sideboard, Félicité every evening took a small 
supply of sugar that she ate alone in her bed after she had 
said her prayers. 

Sometimes in the afternoon she went to chat with the 
-postillions. Madame was in her room upstairs. She wore an 
open dressing-gown, that showed between the shawl facings of 
her bodice a pleated chemisette with three gold buttons. Her 
belt was a corded girdle with great tassels, and her smalli 
garnet-coloured slippers had a large knot of ribbon that fell 
aver her instep. She had bought herself a_ blotting-book, 


46. MADAME BOVARY 


writing-case, pen-holder, and envelopes, although she had no 
one to write to; she dusted her what-not, looked at herself 
in the glass, picked up a book, and then, dreaming between 
the lines, let it drop on her knees. She longed to travel or to 
'go back to her convent. She wished at the same time to die 
and to live in Paris. 

Charles in snow and rain trotted across country. He ate 
omelettes on farmhouse tables, poked his arm into damp beds, 
received the tepid spurt of blood-lettings in his face, listened 
to death-rattles, examined basins, turned over a good deal of 
dirty linen; but every evening he found a blazing fire, his 
dinner ready, easy-chairs, and a well-dressed woman, charming 
with an odour of freshness, though no one could say whence 
the perfume came, or if it were not her skin that made odorous 
her chemise. 

She charmed him by numerous attentions; now it was some 
new way of arranging paper sconces for the candles, a flounce 
that she altered on her gown, or an extraordinary name for 
some very simple dish that the servant had spoilt, but that 
Charles swallowed with pleasure to the last mouthful. At 
Rouen she saw some ladies who wore a bunch of charms on 
their watch-chains; she bought some charms. She wanted for 
her mantelpiece two large blue glass vases, and some time 
after an ivory nécessaire with a silver-gilt thimble. The less 
Charles understood these refinements the more they seduced 
him. They added something to the pleasure of the senses and 
to the comfort of his fireside. It was like a golden dust sand- 
ing all along the narrow path of his life. 

He was well, looked well; his reputation was firmly estab- 
lished. The country-folk loved him because he was not proud. 
te petted the children, never went to the public-house, and, 

1oreover, his morals inspired confidence. He was specially 
uccessful with catarrhs and chest complaints. Being much 
afraid of killing his patients, Charles, in fact, only prescribed 
sedatives, from time to time an emetic, a footbath, or leeches. 
It was not that he was afraid of surgery; he bled people co- 
piously like horses, and for the taking out of teeth he had the 
“devil’s own wrist.” 

Finally, to keep up with the times, he took in “La Ruche 
Médicale,” a new journal whose prospectus had been sent 
him. He read it a little after dinner, but in about five minutes, 
the warmth of the room added to the effect of his dinner sent 
him to sleep; and he sat there, his chin on his two hands and 
his hair spreading like a mane to the foot of the lamp. Emma 
looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. Why, at least, was 


MADAME BOVARY as 


not her husband one of those men of taciturn passions who 
work at their books all night, and at last, when about sixty, 
the age of rheumatism sets in, wear a string of orders on their 
ill-fitting black coat? She could have wished this name of 
Bovary, which was hers, had been illustrious, to see it displayed 
at the booksellers’, repeated in the newspapers, known to all 
France. But Charles had no ambition. An Yvetot doctor 
whom he had lately met in consultation had somewhat humir- 
iated him at the very bedside of the patient, before the 
assembled relatives. When, in the evening, Charles told her 
this anecdote, Emma inveighed loudly against his colleague. 
Charles was much touched. He kissed her forehead with a 
tear in his eyes. But she was angered with shame; she felt 
a wild desire to strike him; she went to open the window 
in the passage and breathed in the fresh air to calm herself. 

“What a man! what a man!” she said in a low voice, biting 
her lips. 

Besides, she was becoming more irritated with him. As he 
grew older his manner grew heavier; at dessert he cut the 
corks of the empty bottles, after eating he cleaned his teeth 
with his tongue; in taking soup he made a gurgling noise with 
every spoonful; and, as he was getting fatter, the puffed-out 
cheeks seemed to push the eyes, always small, up to the temples. 

Sometimes Emma tucked the red borders of his undervest 
into his waistcoat, rearranged his cravat, and threw away the 
dirty gloves he was going to put on; and this was not, as he 
fancied, for himself; it was for herself, by a diffusion of ego- 
tism, of nervous irritation. Sometimes, too, she told him of 
what she had read, such as a passage in a novel, of a new 
play, or an anecdote of the “upper ten” that she had seen in a 
feuilleton; for, after all, Charles was something, an ever-open 
ear, an ever-ready approbation. She confided many a thing to 
her greyhound. She would have done so to the logs in the fire- 
place or to the pendulum of the clock. 

At bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for some- 
thing to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despair- 
ing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some 
white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what 
this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards 
what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a 
three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the port- 
holes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would 
come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a 
start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, aiways 
more saddened, she longed for the morrow. 


48 MADAME BOVARY 


Spring came round. With the first warm weather, when 
the pear-trees began to blossom, she suffered from dyspnea. 

From the beginning of July she counted how many weeks 
there were to October, thinking that perhaps the Marquis 
d’Andervilliers would give another ball at Vaubyessard. But 
all September passed without letters or visits. 

After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once more 
remained empty, and then the same series of days recommenced. 
So now they would thus follow one another, always the same, 
immovable, and bringing nothing. Other lives, however flat, 
had at least the chance of some event. One adventure some- 
times brought with it infinite consequences and the scene . 
changed. But nothing happened to her; God had willed it so! 
The future was a dark corridor, with its door at the end 
shut fast. 

She gave up music. What was the good of playing? Who 
would hear her? Since she could never, in a velvet gown with 
short sleeves, striking with her light fingers the ivory keys 
of an Erard at a concert, feel the murmur of ecstasy envelop 
her like a breeze, it was not worth while boring herself with 
practising. Her drawing cardboard and her embroidery she 
left in the cupboard. What was the good? What was the good? 
Sewing irritated her. “I have read everything,” she said to 
herself. And she sat there making the tongs red-hot, or 
looked at the rain falling. 

How sad she was on Sundays when vespers sounded! She 

listened with dull attention to each stroke of the cracked bell. 
A cat slowly walking over some roof put up his back in the 
pale rays of the sun. The wind on the highroad blew up clouds 
of dust. Afar off a dog sometimes howled; and the bell, 
keeping time, continued its monotonous ringing that died away 
over the fields. 
But the people came out from church. The women in 
waxed clogs, the peasants in new blouses, the little bare- 
headed children skipping along in front of them, all were 
going home. And till nightfall, five or six men, always the 
same, stayed playing at corks in front of the large door of 
the inn. 

The winter was severe. The windows every morning were 
covered with rime, and the light shining through them, dim as 
through ground-glass, sometimes did not change the whole day 
long. At four o’clock the lamp had to be lighted. 

On fine days she went down into the garden. The dew had 
left on the cabbages a silver lace with long transparent threads 
spreading from one to the other. No birds were to be heard; 





MADAME BOVARY 49 


everything seemed asleep, the espalier covered with straw, and 
the vine, like a great sick serpent under the coping of the 
wall, along which, on drawing near, one saw the many-footed 
woodlice crawling. Unler the spruce by the hedgerow, the 
curé in the three-cornered hat reading his breviary had lost 
his right foot, and the very plaster, scaling off with the frost, 
had left white scabs on his face. 

Then she went up again, shut her door, put on coals, ana 
fainting with the heat of the hearth, felt her boredom weigh 
more heavily than ever. She would have liked to go down and 
talk to the servant, but a sense of shame restrained her. 

Every day at the same time the schoolmaster in a black 
skull-cap opened the shutters of his house, and the rural police- 
men, wearing his sabre over his blouse, passed by. Night and 
morning the post-horses, three by three, crossed the street to 
water at the pond. From time to time the bell of a public- 
house door rang, and when it was windy one could hear the 
little brass basins that served as signs for the hairdresser’s 
shop creaking on their two rods. This shop had as decoration 
an old engraving of a fashion-plate stuck against a window- 
pane and the wax bust of a woman with yellow hair. He, too, 
the hairdresser, lamented his wasted calling, his hopeless future, 
and dreaming of some shop in a big town—at Rouen, for 
example, overlooking the harbour, near the theatre—he walked 
up and down all day from the mairie to the church, sombre 
and waiting for customers. When Madame Bovary looked up, 
she always saw him there, like a sentinel on duty, with his 
skull-cap over his ears and his vest of lasting. 

Sometimes in the afternoon outside the window of her 
room, the head of a man appeared, a swarthy head with black 
whiskers, smiling slowly, with a broad, gentle smile that showed 
his white teeth. A waltz immediately began, and on the 
organ, in a little drawing-room, dancers the size of a finger, 
women in pink turbans, Tyrolians in jackets, monkeys in 
frock-coats, gentlemen in knee-breeches, turned and turned 
between the sofas, the consoles, multiplied in the bits of look- 
ing-glass held together at their corners by a piece of gold 
paper. The man turned his handle, looking to the right and 
left, and up at the windows. Now and again, while he shot out 
a long squirt of brown saliva against the milestone, with his 
knee he raised his instrument, whose hard straps tired his 
shoylder; and now, doleful and drawling, or gay and hurried, 
the music escaped from the box, droning through a curtain of 
pink taffeta under a brass claw in arabesque. They were airs 
played in other places at the theatres, sung in drawing-rooms, 


50 MADAME BOVARY 


danced to at night under lighted lustres, echoes of the world 
that reached even to Emma. Endless sarabands ran through 
her head, and, like an Indian dancing-girl on the flowers of a 
carpet, her thoughts leapt with the notes, swung from dream to 
dream, from sadness to sadness. When the man had caught 
some coppers in his cap, he drew down an old cover of blue 
cloth, hitched his organ on to his back, and went off with a 
heavy tread. She watched him go‘yg. 

But it was above all the meal-times that were unbearable 
to her, in this small room on the ground-floor, with its smoking 
stove, its creaking door, the walls that sweated, the damp 
flags; all the bitterness in life seemed served up on her plate} 
and with the smoke of the boiled beef there rose from her 
secret soul whiffs of sickliness. Charles was a slow eater; she 
played with a few nuts, or, leaning on her elbow, amused her- 
self with drawing lines along the oil-cloth table-cover with 
the point of her knife. 

She now let everything in her household take care of itself, 
and Madame Bovary senior, when she came to spend part of 
Lent at Tostes, was much surprised at the change. She who 
was formerly so careful, so dainty, now passed whole days 
without dressing, wore grey cotton stockings, and burnt tallow 
candles. She kept saying they must be economical since they 
were not rich, adding that she was very contented, very happy, 
that Tostes pleased her very much, with other speeches that 
closed the mouth of her mother-in-law. Besides, Emma no 
longer seemed inclined to follow her advice; once even, 
Madame Bovary having thought fit to maintain that mis- 
tresses ought to keep an eye on the religion of their servants, 
she had answered with so angry a look and so cold a smile 
that the good woman did not try it on again. 

Emma was growing difficile, capricious. She ordered dishes 
for herseif, then she did not touch them; one day drank only 
pure milk, and the next cups of tea by the dozen. Often she 
persisted in not going out, then, stifling, threw open the win- 
dows and put on light dresses. After she had well scolded her 
servant she gave her presents or sent her out to see neigh- 
bours, just as she sometimes threw beggars all the silver in 
her purse, although she was by no means tender-hearted or 
easily accessible to the feelings of others, like most country- 
bred people, who always retain in their souls somethirg of the, 
horny hardness of the paternal hands. 

Towards the end of February old Rouault, in memory of his 
cure, himself brought his son-in-law a superb turkey, and stayed 
three days at Tostes. Charles being with his patients, Emma 


MADAME BOVARY / 51) 


kept him company. He smoked in the room, spat on the fire- 
dogs, talked farming, calves, cows, poultry, and municipal 
council, so that when he left she closed the door on him with 
a feeling of satisfaction that surprised even herself. More- 
over she no longer concealed her contempt for anything or 
anybody, and at times she set herself to express singular opin- 
ions, finding fault with that which others approved, and ap- 
proving things perverse ats immoral, all of which made her 
husband open his eyes widely. 

Would this misery last for ever? Would she never issue 
from it? Yet she was as good as all the women who were 
living happily. She had seen duchesses at Vaubyessard with 
clumsier waists and commoner ways, and she execrated the 
injustice of God. She leant her head against the walls to 
weep; she envied lives of stir; longed for masked balls, for 
violent pleasures, with all the wildness, that she did not know, 
but that these must surely yield. — 

_She grew pale and suffered from palpitations of the heart. ° 
Charles prescribed valerian and camphor baths. Everything 
that was tried only seemed to irritate her the more. 

On certain days she chattered with feverish rapidity, and 
this over-excitement was suddenly followed by a state of 
iorpor, in which she remained without speaking, without mov- 
ng. What then revived her was pouring a bottle of eau-de- 
‘ologne over her arms. 

As she was constantly complaining about Tostes, Charles 
‘ancied that her illness was no doubt due to some local cause, 
ind fixing on this idea, began to think seriously of setting up 
‘lsewhere. 




















ittle cough, and completely lost her appetite. 

It cost Charles much to give up Tostes after living there 
jour years and “when he was beginning to get on there.” Yet 
\f it must be! He took her to Rouen to see his old master. 
\t was a nervous complaint: change of air was needed. 

| After looking about him on this side and on that, Charles 
‘jzarnt that in the Neufchatel arrondissement there was a con- 
liderable market-town called Yonville-l?Abbaye, whose doctor, 
Polish refugee, had decamped a week before. Then he 
‘\rrote to the chemist of the place to ask the number of the 
‘opulation, the distance from the nearest doctor, what his 
redecessor had made a year, and so forth; and the answer 
‘eing satisfactory, he made up his mind to move towards the 
loring, if Emma’s health did not improve. 


4) One day when, in view of her departure, she was tidyit 
y UNIVERSITY OF int 


tae 


From that moment she drank vinegar, contracted a sharp | .. 


52 MADAME BOVARY 


a drawer, something pricked her finger. It was a wire of 
her wedding-bouquet. The orange blossoms were yellow with 
dust and the silver-bordered satin ribbons frayed at the edges. 
She threw it into the fire. It flared up more quickly than dry 
straw. Then it was like a red bush in the cinders, slowly de- 
voured. She watched it burn. The little pasteboard berries 
burst, the wire twisted, the gold lace melted; and the shrivelled 
paper corollas, fluttering like black butterflies at the back of 
the stove, at last flew up the chimney. 

When they left Tostes in the month of March, Madame 
Bovary was pregnant. 








PART II 
I 


ONVILLE-L’ABBAYE (so called from an old Capuchin 
abbey of which not even the ruins remain), is a market- 
town twenty-four miles from Rouen, between the Abbeville and 
Beauvais roads, at the foot of a valley watered by the Rieule, 
a little river that runs into the Andelle after turning three 
water-mills near its mouth, where there are a few trout that 
the lads amuse themselves by fishing for on Sundays. 
We leave the highroad at La Boissiére and keep straight on 
to the top of the Leux hill, whence the valley is seen. The 
river that runs through it makes of it, as it were, two regions 
with distinct physiognomies,—all on the left is pasture land, 
all on the right arable. The meadow stretches under a bulge 
of low hills to join at the back with the pasture land of the 
Bray country, while on the eastern side, the plain, gently rising, 
broadens out, showing as far as eye can follow its blond corn- 
fields. The water, flowing by the grass, divides with a white 
line the colour of the roads. and of the plains, and the country 
is like a great unfolded mantle with a green velvet cape bor- 
dered with a fringe of silver. 

Before us, on the verge of the horizon, lie the oaks of the 
forest of Argueil, with the steeps of the Saint-Jean hills scarred 
from top to bottom with red irregular lines; they are rain- 
tracks, and these brick-tones standing out in narrow streaks 
against the grey colour of the mountain are due to the quan- 
tity of iron springs that flow beyond in the neighbouring 
country. 

Here we are on the confines of Normandy, Picardy, and the 
Ile-de-France, a bastard land, whose language is without accent 
as its landscape is without character. It is there that they make 
the worst Neufchatel cheeses of all the arrondissement; and, 
on the other hand, farming is costly because so much manurc 
is needed to enrich this friable soil full of sand and flints. 

Up to 1835 there was no practicable road for getting to 
Yonville, but about this time a cross-road was made which 


53 


54 MADAME BOVARY 


joins that of Abbeville to that of Amiens, and is occasionally 
used by the Rouen waggoners on their way to Flanders. 
Yonville-l’Abbaye has remained stationary in spite of its “new 
outlet.” Instead of improving the soil, they persist in keeping 
up the pasture lands, however depreciated they may be in value, 
and the lazy borough, growing away from the plain, has natu- 
rally spread riverwards. It is seen from afar sprawling along 
the banks like a cowherd taking a siesta by the water-side. 

At the foot of the hill beyond the bridge begins a roadway, 
pianted with young aspens that leads in a straight line to 
the first houses in the place. These, fenced in by hedges, are 
in the middle of courtyards full of straggling buildings, wine- 
presses, cart-sheds, and distilleries scattered under thick trees, 
with ladders, poles, or scythes hung on to the branches. The 
thatched roofs, like fur caps drawn over eyes, reach down over 
about a third of the low windows, whose course convex glasses 
have knots in the middle like the bottoms of bottles. Against 
the plaster wall diagonally crossed by black joists, a meagre 
pear-tree sometimes leans, and the ground-floors have at their 
door a small swing-gate, to keep out the chicks that come pil- 
fering crumbs of bread steeped in cider on the threshold. But 
the courtyards grow narrower, the houses closer together, and 
the fences disappear; a bundle of ferns swings under a window 
from the end of a broomstick; there is a blacksmith’s forge and 
then a wheelwright’s, with two or three new carts outside that 
partly block up the way. Then across an open space appears a 
white house beyond a grass mound ornamented by a Cupid, 
his finger on his lips; two brass vases are at each end of a 
flight of steps; scutcheons* blaze upon the door. It is the 
notary’s house, and the finest in the place. 

The church is on the other side of the street, twenty paces 
farther down, at the entrance of the square. The little ceme- 
tery that surrounds it, closed in by a wall breast-high, is so 
full of graves that the old stones, level with the ground, form 
a continuous pavement, on which the grass of itself has marked 
out regular green squares. The church was rebuilt during 
the last years of the reign of Charles X. The wooden roof 
is beginning to rot from the top, and here and there has black 
hollows in its blue colour. Over the door, where the organ 
should be, is a loft for the men, with a spiral staircase that 
reverberates under their wooden shoes. 

The daylight coming through the plain glass windows falls 





[* The panonceaux that have to be hung over the doors of 
notaries.—TRANS. ] | 


MADAME BOVARY 55 


obliquely upon the pews ranged along the walls, which are 
adorned here and there with a straw mat bearing beneath it 
the words in large letters, “Mr. So-and-so’s pew.” Farther on, 
at a spot where the building narrows, the confessional forms 
a pendant to a statuette of the Virgin, clothed in a satin robe, 
coifed with a tulle veil sprinkled with silver stars, and with 
red cheeks, like an idol of the Sandwich Islands; and, finally, 
ja copy of the “Holy Family, presented by the Minister of the 
Interior,” overlooking the high altar, between four candlesticks, 
closes in the perspective. The choir stalls, of deal wood, have 
been left unpainted. 

The market, that is to say, a tiled roof supported by some 
twenty posts, occupies of itself about half the public square of 
\Yonville. The town hall, constructed “from the designs of a 
Paris architect,’ is a sort of Greek temple that forms the 
corner next to the chemist’s shop. On the ground-floor are 
three Ionic columns and on the first floor a semicircular gal- 
lery, while the dome that crowns it is occupied by a Gallic 
cock, resting one foot upon the “Charte” and holding in the 
other the scales of Justice. 

But that which most attracts the eye is opposite the Lion 
d’Or inn the chemist’s shop cf Monsieur Homais. In the 
evening especially its argand lamp is lit up and the red and 
green jars that embellish his shop-front throw far across the 
street their two streams of colour; then across them as if 
in Bengal lights is seen the shadow of the chemist leaning over 
his desk. His house from top to bottom is placarded with 
inscriptions written in large hand, round hand, printed hand: 
“Vichy, Seltzer, Barege waters, blood purifiers, Raspail patent 
medicine, Arabian racahout, Darcet lozenges, Regnault paste, 
‘russes, baths, hygienic chocolate,” &c. And the signboard, 
which takes up all the breadth of the shop, bears in gold letters, 
“Homais, Chemist.” Then at the back of the shop, behind the 
zreat scales fixed to the counter, the word “Laboratory” appears 
yn a scroll above a glass door, which about half-way up once 
nore repeats “Homais” in gold letters on a black ground. 

Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville. The street 
(the only one) a gunshot in length and flanked by a few shops 
on either side stops short at the turn of the highroad. If it 
s left on the right hand and the foot of the Saint-Jean hills 
followed the cemetery is soon reached. _ 

At the time of the cholera, in order to enlarge this, a piece 
»f wall was pulled down, and three acres of land by its side 
yurchased; but all the new portion is almost tenantless; the 
combs, as heretofore, continue to crowd together towards the 


56 MADAME BOVARY 


gate. The keeper, who is at once gravedigger and church 
beadle (thus making a double profit out of the parish corpses), 
has taken advantage of the unused plot of ground to plant 
potatoes there. From year to year, however, his small field 
grows smaller, and when there is an epidemic, he does not 
know whether to rejoice at the deaths or regret the burials. 

“You live on the dead, Lestiboudois!” the curé at last said 
to him one day. This grim remark made him reflect; it checked 
him for some time; but to this day he carries on the cultiva- 
tion of his little tubers, and even maintains stoutly that they 
grow naturally. 

Since the events about to be narrated, nothing in fact has 
changed at Yonville. The tin tricolour flag still swings at the 
top of the church-steeple; the two chintz streamers still flutter 
in the wind from the linendraper’s; the chemist’s foetuses, hke 
lumps of white amadou, rot more and more in their turbid 
alcohol, and above the big door of the inn the old golden 
lion, faded by rain, still shows passers-by its poodle mane. 

On the evening when the Bovarys were to arrive at Yonville, 
Widow Lefrangois, the landlady of this inn, was so very busy 
that she sweated great drops as she moved her saucepans. 
To-morrow was market-day. The meat had to be cut before- 
hand, the fowls drawn, the soup and coffee made. Moreover, 
she had the boarders’ meal to see to, and that of the doctor, 
his wife, and their servant; the billiard-room was echoing with 
bursts of laughter; three millers in the small parlour were 
calling for brandy; the wood was blazing, the brazen pan was 
hissing, and on the long kitchen-table, amid the quarters of 
raw mutton, rose piles of plates that rattled with the shaking 
of the block on which spinach was being chopped. From the 
poultry-yard was heard the screaming of the fowls whom the 
servant was chasing in order to wring their necks. 

A man slightly marked with small-pox, in green leather slip- 
pers, and wearing a velvet cap with a gold tassel, was warming 
his back at the chimney. His face expressed nothing but self- 
satisfaction, and he appeared to take life as calmly as the gold- 
finch suspended over his head in its wicker cage: this was 
the chemist. 

“Artémise!” shouted the landlady, “chop some wood, fill 
the water bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp! If only I 
knew what dessert to offer the guests you are expecting! 
Good heavens! Those furniture-movers are beginning their 
racket in the billiard-room again; and their van has been left 
before the front door! The ‘Hirondelle’ might run into it 
when it draws up. Call Polyte and tell him to put it up. 


| 





MADAME BOVARY 57 


Only to think, Monsieur Homais, that since morning they have 
had about fifteen games, and drunk eight jars of cider! Why, 
they'll tear my cloth for me,’ she went on, looking at them 
from a distance, her strainer in her hand. 

“That wouldn’t be much of a loss,” replied Monsieur Homais. 
“You would buy another.” 

“Another . billiard-table!” exclaimed the widow. 

“Since that one is coming to pieces, Madame Lefrancois. 
I tell you again you are doing yourself harm, much harm! 
And besides, players now want narrow pockets and heavy 
cues. Hazards aren’t played now; everything is changed! One 
must keep pace with the times! Just look at Tellier!” 

The hostess reddened with vexation. The chemist went on— 

“You may say what you like; his table is better than yours; 
and if one were to think, for example, of getting up a patriotic 
pool for Poland or the sufferers from the Lyons floods” 

“Tt isn’t beggars like him that'll frighten us,” interrupted the 
landlady, shrugging her fat shoulders. “Come, come, Monsieur 
Homais; as long as the ‘Lion d’Or’ exists people will come to it. 
We've feathered our nest; while one of these days you'll find 
the ‘Café Francais’ closed with a big placard on the shutters. 
Change my billiard-table!” she went on, speaking to herself, 
“the table that comes in so handy for folding the washing, and 
on which, in the hunting season, I have slept six visitors! But 
that dawdler, Hivert, doesn’t come!” 

“Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen’s dinner?” 

“Wait for him! And what about Monsieur Binet? As the 
clock strikes six you’ll see him come in, for he hasn’t his equal 
under the sun for punctuality. He must always have his seat 
in the small parlour. He’d rather die than dine anywhere else.: 
And so squeamish as he is, and so particular about the cider! 
Not like Monsieur Léon; he sometimes comes at seven, or even 
half-past, and he doesn’t so much as look at what he eats. 
Such a nice young man! Never speaks a rough word!” 

“Well, you see, there’s a great difference between an educated 
man and an old carabineer who is now a tax-collector.” 

Six o’clock struck. Binet came in. 

He wore a blue frock-coat falling in a straight line round his 
thin body, and his leather cap, with its lappets knotted over the 
top of his head with string, showed under the turned-up peak 
a bald forehead, flattened by the constant wearing of a helmet. 
He wore a black cloth waistcoat, a hair collar, grey trousers, 
jand, all the year round, well-blacked boots, that had two parailel 
\swellings due to the sticking out of his big-toes. Not a hair 
stood out from the regular line of fair whiskers, which, en- 





58 MADAME BOVARY 


circling his jaws, framed, after the fashion of a garden border, 
his long, wan face, whose eyes were small and the nose hooked. 
Clever at all games of cards, a good hunter, and writing a fine 
hand, he had at home a lathe, and amused himself by turning 
napkin-rings, with which he filled up his house, with the Jeatousy 
of an artist and the egotism of a bourgeois. 

He went to the small parlour, but the three millers had to be 
got out first, and during the whole time necessary for laying 
the cloth, Binet remained silent in his place near the stove. 
Then he shut the door and took off his cap in his usual way. 
» “Tt isn’t with saying civil things that he’ll wear out his tongue,” 
‘said the chemist, as soon as he was alone with the landlady. 

“He never talks more,” she replied. “Last week two travellers 
in the cloth line were here—such clever chaps, who told such 
jokes in the evening, that I fairly cried with laughing; and 
he stood there like a dab fish and never said a word.” 

“Yes,” observed the chemist; “no imagination, no _sallies, 
nothing that makes the society-man.” 

“Vet they say he has parts,” objected the landlady. 

“Parts!” replied Monsieur Homais; “he parts! In his own 
line it is possible,” he added in a caimer tone. And he went 
on— 

“Ah! that a merchant, who has‘ large connections, a juris- 
consult, a doctor, a chemist, should be thus absent-minded, that 
they should become whimsical or even peevish, I can wunder- 
stand; such cases are cited in history. But at least it is because 
they are thinking of something. Myself, for example, how 
often has it happened to me to look on the bureau of my pen 
to write a label, and to find, after all, that I had put it behind 
my ear?” 

Madame Lefrancois just then went to the door to see if the 
“Hirondelle”’ were not coming. She started. A man dressed 
in black suddenly came into the kitchen. By the last gleam of 
the twilight one could see that his face was rubicund and his 
form athletic. 

“What can I do for you, Monsieur le Curé?” asked the 
landlady, as she reached down from the chimney one of the 
copper candlesticks placed with their candles in a row. “Will 
you take something? A thimbleful of Cassis? A glass of wine?” 

The priest declined very politely. He had come for his 
umbrella, that he had forgotten the other day at the Ernemont 
convent, and after asking Madame Lefrancois to have it sent 
to him at the presbytery in the evening, he left for the church, 
from which the Angelus was ringing. 

When the chemist no longer heard the noise of his boots 


MADAME BOVARY 59 


along the square, he thought the priest’s behaviour just now 
very unbecoming. This refusal to take any reireshment seemed 
to him the most odious hypocrisy; all priests tippled on the 
sly, and were trying to bring back the days of the tithe. 

The landlady took up the defence of her curé. 

“Besides, he could double up four men like you over his 
knee. Last year he helped our people to bring in the straw; 
he carried as many as six trusses at once, he is so strong.” 

“Bravo!” said the chemist. “Now just send your daughters 
to confess to fellows with such a temperament! I, if I were 
the Government, I’d have the priests bled once a month. Yes, 
Madame Lefrangois, every month—a good phlebotomy, in the 
interests of the police and morals.” 

“Be quiet, Monsieur Homais. You are an infidel; you’ve no 
religion.” 

The chemist answered: “I have a religion, my religion, and 
I even have more than all these others with their mummeries 
-and their juggling. I adore God, on the contrary. I believe in 
the Supreme Being, in a Creator, whatever he may be. I care 
little who has placed us here below to fulfil our duties as 
citizens and fathers of families; but I don’t need to go te 
church to kiss silver plates, and fatten, out of my pocket, a lof 
of good-for-nothings who live better than we do. For one 
can know him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contem- 
plating the eternal vault like the ancients. My God! mine is 
the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, and of Béranger! 
I am for the profession of faith of the ‘Savoyard Vicar,’ and 
the immortal principles of ’89! And I can’t admit of an old 
boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane in 
his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies 
uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things 
absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, te all 
physical laws, which proves to us, by the way, that priests have 
always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain 
engulf the people with them.” 

He ceased looking round for an audience, for in his bubbling 
over the chemist had for a moment fancied himself in the midst 
of the town council. But the landlady no longer heeded him; 
she was listening to a distant rolling. One could distinguish 
the noise of a carriage mingled with the clattering of loose 
horseshoes that beat against the ground, and at last the “Hiron- 
delle” stopped at the door. 

It was a yellow box on two large wheels, that, reaching to 
the tilt, prevented travellers from seeing the road and dirtied 
their shoulders. The small panes of the narrow windows 


60 MADAME BOVARY 


rattled in their sashes when the coach was closed, and retained 
here and there patches of mud amid the old layers of dust, that 
not even storms of rain had altogether washed away. It was 
drawn by three horses, the first a leader, and when it came 
down-hill its bottom jolted against the ground. 

Some of the inhabitants of Yonville came out into the square; 
they all spoke at once, asking for news, for explanations, for 
hampers. Hivert did not know whom to answer. It was he 
who did the errands of the place in town. He went to the 
shops and brought back rolls of leather for the shoemaker, old 
iron for the farrier, a barrel of herrings for his mistress, caps 
from the milliner’s, locks from the hair-dresser’s, and all along 
the road on his return journey he distributed his parcels, which. 
he threw, standing upright on his seat and shouting at the 
top of his voice, over the enclosures of the yards. 

An accident had delayed him. Madame Bovary’s greyhound 
had run across the field. They had whistled for him a quarter 
of an hour; Hivert had even gone back a mile and a half 
expecting every moment to catch sight of her; but it had been 
necessary to go on. Emma had wept, grown angry; she had 
accused Charles of this misfortune. Monsieur Lheureux, a 
‘draper, who happened to be in the coach with her, had tried 
to console her by a number of examples of lost dogs recog- 
nising their masters at the end of long years. One, he said, 
had been told of, who had come back to Paris from Constan- 
tinople. Another had gone one hundred and fifty miles in a 
straight line, and swum four rivers; and his own father had 
possessed a poodle, which, after twelve years of absence, had 
all of a sudden jumped on his back in the street as he was 
going to dine in town. 


II 


ki MMA got out first, then Félicité, Monsieur Lheureux, and a 
nurse, and they had to wake up Charles in his corner, 
where he had slept soundly since night set in. 

Homais introduced himself; he offered his homages to madame 
and his respects to monsieur; said he was charmed to have been 
able to render them some slight service, and added with a cordial 
air that he had ventured to invite himself, his wife being away. 

When Madame Bovary was in the kitchen she went up to the 
chimney. With the tips of her fingers she caught her dress at 
the knee, and having thus pulled it up to her ankle, held out 
her foot in its black boot to the fire above the revolving leg of 


MADAME BOVARY 61 


mutton. The flame lit up the whole of her, penetrating with 

a crude light the woof of her gowns, the fine pores of her fair 

skin, and even her eyelids, which she blinked now and again. 

A great red glow passed over her with the blowing of the wind 
through the half-open door. On the other side of the chimney 

a young man with fair hair watched her silently. 

As he was a good deal bored at Yonville, where he was a 
clerk at the notary’s, Monsieur Guillaumin, Monsieur Léon 

Dupuis (it was he who was the second habitué of the “Lion 

d’Or”’) frequently put back his dinner-hour in the hope that 

some traveller might come to the inn, with whom he could 
chat in the evening. On the days when his work was done 
early, he had, for want of something else to do, to come punc- 
tually, and endure from soup to cheese a téte-d-téte with Binet. 

It was therefore with delight that he accepted the landlady’s 

suggestion that he should dine in company with the newcomers, 
_and they passed into the large parlour where Madame Lefrancois, 
for the purpose of showing off, had had the table laid for four. 

Homais asked to be allowed to keep on his skull-cap, for fear 
of coryza; then, turning to his neighbour— 

“Madame is no doubt a little fatigued; one gets jolted so 
abominably in our ‘Hirondelle.’ ” 

“That is true,’ replied Emma; “but moving about always 
amuses me. I like change of place.” 

“Tt is so tedious,” sighed the clerk, “to be always riveted to 
the same places.” 

“Tf you were like me,” said Charles, “constantly obliged to be 
in the saddle” 

“But,” Léon went on, addressing himself to Madame Bovary, 
“nothing, it seems to me, is more pleasant—when one can,” he 
added. 

“Moreover,” said the druggist, “the practice of medicine is 
not very hard work in our part of the world, for the state of 
our roads allows us the use of gigs, and generally, as the farmers 
are well off, they pay pretty well. We have, medically speaking, 
besides the ordinary cases of enteritis, bronchitis, bilious affec- 
tions, &c., now and then a few intermittent fevers at harvest- 
time; but on the whole, little of a serious nature, nothing 
special to note, unless it be a great deal of scrofula, due, no 
doubt, to the deplorable hygienic conditions of our peasant 
dwellings. Ah! you will find many prejudices to combat, Mon- 
sieur Bovary, much obstinacy of routine, with which all the 
efforts of your science will dait come into collision; for people 
|still have recourse to noverntrieto relics, to the priest, rather 
jthan come stvaight to the sie fiction, the chemist. The climate, 








62 MADAME BOVARY 


however, is not, truth to tell, bad, and we even have a few 
nonogenarians in our parish. The thermometer (I have made 
some observations) falls in winter to 4 degrees, and in the 
‘iottest season rises to 25 or 30 degrees Centigrade at the out- 
ide, which gives us 24 degrees Réaumur as the maximum, or 
therwise 54 degrees Fahrenheit (English scale), not more. 
And, as a matter of fact, we are sheltered from the north 
winds by the forest of Argueil on the one side, from the west 
winds by the St. Jean range on the other; and this heat, more- 
over, which, on account of the aqueous vapours given off by the 
river and the considerable number of cattle in the fields, which, 
as you know, exhale much ammonia, that is to say, nitrogen, 
hydrogen, and oxygen (no, nitrogen and hydrogen alone), and 
which sucking up into itself the humus from the ground, mixing 
together all those different emanations, unites them into a stack, 
so to say, and combining with the electricity diffused through 
the atmosphere, when there is any, might in the long-run, as in 
tropical countries, engender insalubrious miasmata,—this heat, 
I say, finds itseif perfectly tempered on the side whence it 
comes, or rather whence it should come—that is to say, the 
southern side—by the south-eastern winds, which, having cooled 
themselves passing over the Seine, reach us sometimes all at 
once like breezes from Russia.” 

“At any rate, you have some walks in the neighbourhood?” 
continued Madame Bovary, speaking to the young man. 

“Oh, very few,” he answered. “There is a place they call 
La Pature, on the top of the hill, on the edge of the forest. 
Sometimes, on Sundays, I go and stay there with a book, watch- 
ing the sunset.” 

“T think there is nothing so admirable as sunsets,” she re- 
sumed; “but especially by the side of the sea.” 

“Oh, I adore the sea!” said Monsieur Léon. 

“And then, does it not seem to you,” continued Madame 
Bovary, “that the mind travels more freely on this limitless 
expanse, the contemplation of which elevates the soul, gives 
ideas of the infinite, the ideal?” 

“Tt is the same with mountainous landscapes,” continued Léon. 
“A cousin of mine who travelled in Switzerland last year told 
me that one could not picture to oneself the poetry of the lakes, 
the charm of the waterfalls, the gigantic effect of the glaciers, 
One sees pines of incredible size across torrents, cottages sus- 
pended over precipices, and, ¢ thousand feet below one, whole 
valleys when the clouds ope 1. Such spectacles must stir to 
enthusiasm, incline to prayered 1. ecstasy; and I no longer 
marvel at that celebrated J the fire’.who, the better to inspire 





MADAME BOVARY 63 


iis imagination, was in the habit of playing the piano before 
some imposing site.” 

“You play?” she asked. 

“No, but I am very fond of music,” he replied. 

“Ah! don’t you listen to him, Madame Bovary,” interrupted 
Homais, bending over his plate. “That’s sheer modesty. Why, 
my dear fellow, the other day in your room you were singing 
‘L’Ange Gardien’ ravishingly. I heard you from the laboratory. 
You gave it like an actor.” 

Léon, in fact, lodged at the chemist’s, where he had a small 
room on the second floor, overlooking the Place. He blushed 
at the compliment of his landlord, who had already turned to 
the doctor, and was enumerating to him, one after the other, all 
the principal inhabitants of Yonville. He was telling anecdotes, 
giving information; the fortune of the notary was not known 
exactly, and “there was the Tuvache household,’ who made 
a good deal of show. 

_ Emma continued, “And what music do you prefer?” 

“Oh, German music; that which makes you dream.” 

“Have you been to the opera?” 

“Not yet; but I shall go next year, when I am living at Paris 
to finish reading for the bar.” 

“As I had the honour of putting it to your husband,” said 
the chemist, “with regard to this poor Yanoda who has run 
away, you will find yourself, thanks to his extravagance, in the 
possession of one of the most comfortable houses of Yonville. 
Its greatest convenience for a doctor is a door giving on the 
Walk, where one can go in and out unseen. Moreover, it con- 
tains everything that is agreeable in a household—a laundry, 
kitchen with offices, sitting-room, fruit-room, &c. He was a 
gay dog, who didn’t care what he spent. At the end of the 
garden, by the side of the water, he had an arbour built just 
for the purpose of drinking beer in summer; and if madame is 
fond of gardening she will be able——” 

“My wife doesn’t care about it,” said Charles; “although she 
has been advised to take exercise, she prefers always sitting 
in her room reading.” 

“Like me,” replied Léon. “And indeed, what is better than tn 
sit by one’s fireside in the evening with a book, while the winé 
beats against the window and the lamp is burning?” 

“What, indeed?” she said, fixing her large black eyes wide 
open upon him. 

“One thinks of noching,’ he continued; “the hours slip by. 
Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we see, and your 
thought, blending with the fiction, playing with the details, 


64 MADAME BOVARY 


follows the outline of the adventures. It mingles with thie 
characters, and it seems as if it were yourself palpitating be- 
neath their costumes.” 

“That is true! that is true!” she said. 

“Has it ever happened to you,” Léon went on, “to come across 
some vague idea of one’s own in a book, some dim image that 
comes back to you from afar, and as the completest expression 
of your own slightest sentiment?” 

“T have experienced it,” she replied. 

“That is why,” he said, “I especially love the poets. I think 
verse more tender than prose, and that it moves far more easily 
to tears.” 

“Still in the long-run it is tiring,” continued Emma. “Now I, 
on the contrary, adore stories that rush breathlessly along, that 
frighten one. I detest commonplace heroes and moderate senti- 
ments, such as there are in nature.” 

“In fact,” observed the clerk, “these works, not touching the 
heart, miss, it seems to me, the true end of art. It is so sweet, 
amid all the disenchantments of life, to be able to dwell in 
thought upon noble characters, pure affections, and pictures of 
happiness. For myself, living here far from the world, this is 
my one distraction; but Yonville affords so few resources.” 

“Like Tostes, no doubt,” replied Emma; “and so I always 
subscribed to a lending library.” 

“Tf madame will do me the honour of making use of it,” said 
the chemist, who had just caught the last words, “I have at her 
disposal a library composed of the best authors, Voltaire, Rous- 
seau, Deliile, Walter Scott, the ‘Echo des Feuilletons’; and in 
addition I receive various periodicals, among them the ‘Fanal 
de Rouen’ daily, having the advantage to be its correspondent 
for the districts of Buchy, Forges, Neufchatel, Yonville, and 
vicinity.” 

For two hours and a half they had been at table; for the 
servant Artémis, carelessly dragging her old list slippers over 
the flags, brought one plate after the other, forgot everything, 
and constantly left the door of the billiard-room half open, so 
that it beat against the wall with its hooks. 

Unconsciously, Léon, while talking, had placed his foot on 
one of the bars of the chair on which Madame Bovary was 
sitting. She wore a small blue silk necktie, that kept up like 
a ruff a gauffered cambric collar, and with the movements of 
her head the lower part of her face gen‘ly sunk into the linen 
or came out from it. Thus side by side, while Charles and the 
chemist chatted, they entered into one of those vague conver- 
sations where the hazard of all that is said brings you back to 


MADAME BOVARY 63. 


the fixed centre of a common sympathy. The Paris theatres, 
titles of novels, new quadrilles, and the world they did not 
know; Tostes, where she had lived, and Yonville, where they 
were; they examined all, talked of everything till to the end 
of dinner. 

When coffee was served Feélicité went away to get ready the 
room in the new house, and the guests soon raised the siege. 
Madame Lefrancois was asleep near the cinders, while the 
stable-boy, lantern in hand, was waiting to show Monsieur and 
Madame Bovary the way home. Bits of straw stuck in his 
red hair, and he limped with his left leg. When he had taken 
in his other hand the curé’s umbrella, they started. 

The town was asleep; the pillars of the market threw great 
shadows; the earth was all grey as on a summer’s night. But 
as the doctor’s house was only some fifty paces from the inn, 
they had to say good-night almost immediately, and the com- 
pany dispersed. 

As soon as she entered the passage, Emma felt the cold of 

the plaster fall about her shoulders like damp linen. The walls 
were new and the wooden stairs creaked. In their bedroom, 
on the first floor, a whitish light passed through the curtain- 
less windows. She could catch glimpses of tree-tops, and be- 
yond, the fields, half-drowned in the fog that lay reeking in 
the moonlight along the course of the river. In the middle of 
the room, pell-mell, were scattered drawers, bottles, curtain- 
rods, gilt poles, with mattresses on the chairs and basins on the 
ground,--the two men who had brought the furniture had left 
everything about carelessly. 
_ This was the fourth time that she had slept in a strange place. 
The first was the day of her going to the convent; the second, 
of her arrival at Tostes; the third, at Vaubyessard; and this 
was the fourth. And each one had marked, as it were, the 
inauguration of a new phase in her life. She did not believe 
‘that things could present themselves in the same way in different 
places, and since the portion of her life lived had been bad, 
‘no doubt that which remained to be lived would be better. 


&6 MADAME BOVARY 


Iil 


HE next day, as she was getting up, she saw the clerk on 
the Place. She had on a dressing-gown. He looked up 
and bowed. She nodded quickly and reclosed the window. 

Léon waited all day for six o’clock in the evening to come, 
but on going to the inn, he found no one but Monsieur Binet, 
already at table. The dinner of the evening before had been 
a considerable event for him; he had never till then talked for 
two hours consecutively to a “lady.” How then had he been 
able to explain, and in such language, the number of things 
that he could not have said so well before? He was usually 
shy, and maintained that reserve which partakes at once of 
modesty and dissimulation. At Yonville he was considered 
“well-bred.” He listened to the arguments of the older people, 
and did not seem hot abort politics—a remarkable thing for 
a young man. Then he had some accomplishments; he painted 
in water-colours, could read the key of G, and readily talked 
literature after dinner when he did not play cards. Monsieur 
Homais respected him for his education; Madame Homais 
liked him for his good-nature, for he often took the little 
Homais into the garden—little brats who were always dirty, 
very much spoilt, and somewhat lymphatic, like their mother. 
Besides the servant to look after them, they had Justin, the 
chemist’s apprentice, a second cousin of Monseiur Homais, who 
had been taken into the house from charity, and who was 
useful at the same time as a servant. 

The druggist proved the best of neighbours. He gave Ma- 
dame Bovary information as to the tradespeople, sent expressly 
for his own cider merchant, tasted the drink himself, and saw 
that the casks were properly placed in the cellar; he explained 
how to set about getting in a supply of butter cheap, and made 
an arrangement with Lestiboudois, the sacristan, who, besides 
his sacerdotal and funereal functions, looked after the prin- 
cipal gardens at Yonville by the hour or the year, according 
to the taste of the customers. 

The need of looking after others was not the only thing that 
urged the chemist to such obsequious cordiality; there was a 
plan underneath it all. 

He had infringed the law of the 19th Ventose, year xi., article 
1, which forbade all persons not having a diploma to practise 
medicine; so that, after certain anonymous denunciations, 
Homais had been summoned to Rouen to see the procurer of 
the king in his own private room; the magistrate receiving him 


MADAME BOVARY 67 


standing up, ermine on shoulder and cap on head. It was in 
the morning, before the court opened. In the corridors one 
heard the heavy boots of the gendarmes walking past, and like 
a far-off noise great locks that were shut. The druggist’s ears 
tingled as if he were about to have an apoplectic stroke; he 
saw the depths of dungeons, his family in tears, his shop sold, 
all the jars dispersed; and he was obliged to enter a café and 
take a glass of rum and seltzer to recover his spirits. 

Little by little the memory of this reprimand grew fainter, 
and he continued, as heretofore, to give anodyne consultations 
in his back-parlour. But the mayor resented it, his colleagues 
were jealous, everything was to be feared; gaining over Mon- 
sieur Bovary by his attentions was to earn his gratitude, and 
prevent his speaking out later on, should he notice anything. 
So every morning Homais brought him “the paper,” and often 
in the afternoon left his shop for a few moments to have a 
chat with the Doctor. 

Charles was dull: patients did not come. He remained seated 
for hours without speaking, went into his consulting-room to 
sleep, or watched his wife sewing. Then for diversion he 
employed himself at home as a workman; he even tried to do 
up the attic with some paint which had been left behind by 
the painters. But money matters worried him. He had spent 
so much for repairs at Tostes, for madame’s toilette, and for 
the moving, that the whole dowry, over three thousand crowns, 
had slipped away in two years. Then how many things had 
been spoilt or lost during their carriage from Tostes to Yon- 
ville, without counting the plaster curé, who, falling out of 
the coach at an over-severe jolt, had been dashed into a thou- 
sand fragments on the pavement of Quincampoix! 

A pleasanter trouble came to distract him, namely, the preg- 
nancy of his wife. As the time of her confinement approached 
he cherished her the more. It was another bond of the flesh 
establishing itself, and, as it were, a continued sentiment of 
a more complex union. When from afar he saw her languid 
walk, and her figure without stays turning softly on her hips; 
when opposite one another he looked at her at his ease, while 
she took tired poses in her armchair, then his happiness knew 
no bounds; he got up, embraced her, passed his hands over her 
face, called her little mamma, wanted to make her dance. and, 
half-laughing, half-crying, uttered all kinds of caressing pleas- 
antries that came into his head. The idea of having begotten 
a child delighted him. Now he wanted nothing. He knew 
human life from end to end, and he sat down to it with serenity. 

Emma at first felt a great astonishment; then was anxious 


68 MADAME BOVARY 


to be delivered that she might know what it was to be a 
mother. But not being able to spend as much as she would 
have liked, to have a swing-bassinette with rose silk curtains, 
and embroidered caps, in a fit of bitterness she gave up look- 
ing after the trousseau, and ordered the whole of it from a 
village needlewoman, without choosing or discussing anything. 
Thus she did not amuse herself with those preparations that 
stimulate the tenderness of mothers, and so her affection was 
from the very outset, perhaps, to some extent attenuated. 

As Charles, however, spoke of the boy at every meal, she 
soon began to think of him more consecutively. . 

She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she 
would call him George; and this idea of having a male child 
was like an expected revenge for all her impotence in the past. 
A man, at least, is free; he may travel over passions and over 
countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most far-away 
pleasures. But a woman is always hampered. At once inert 
and flexible, she has against her the weakness of the flesh 
and legal dependence. Her will, like the veil of her bonnet, 
held by a string, flutters in every wind; there is always some 
desire that draws her, some conventionality that restrains. 

She was confined on a Sunday at about six o’clock, as the 
sun was rising. 

Vithis: as girl? saidaCharles; 

She turned her head away and fainted. 

Madame Homais, as well as Madame Lefrancois of the 
Lion d’Or, almost immediately.came running in to embrace her. 
The chemist, as a man of discretion, only offered a few pro- 
visional felicitations through the half-opened door. He wished 
to see the child, and thought it well made. 

Whilst she was getting well she occupied herself much in 
seeking a name for her daughter. First she went over all 
those that have Italian endings, such as Clara, Louisa, Amanda, 
Atala; she liked Galsuinde pretty well, and Yseult-or Léocadie 
still better. Charles wanted the child to be called after her 
mother; Emma opposed this. They ran over the calendar 
from end to end, and then consulted outsiders. 

“Monsieur Léon,” said the chemist, “with whom I was talk- 
ing about it the other day, wonders you do not choose Made- 
leine. It is very much in fashion just now.” 

But Madame Bovary, senior, cried out loudly against this 
name of a sinner. As to Monsieur Homais, he had a preference 
for all those that recalled some great man, an illustrious fact, 
or a generous idea, and it was on this system that he had 
baptized his four children. Thus Napoleon represented glory 


MADAME BOVARY 69 


and Franklin liberty; Irma was perhaps a concession to roman- 
ticism, but Athalie was a homage to the greatest masterpiece 
of the French stage. For his philosophical convictions did not 
interfere with his artistic tastes; in him the thinker did not 
stifle the man of sentiment; he could make distinctions, make 
allowances for imagination and fanaticism. In this tragedy, 
for example, he found fault with the ideas, but admired the 
style; he detested the conception, but applauded all the details, 
and loathed the characters while he grew enthusiastic over their 
dialogue. When he read the fine passages he was transported, 
but when he thought that mummers would get something out 
of them for their show, he was disconsolate; and in this con- 
fusion of sentiments in which he was involved he would have 
liked at once to crown Racine with both his hands and discuss 
with him for a good quarter of an hour. 

At last Emma remembered that at the chateau of Vau- 
byessard she had heard the Marchioness call a young lady 
Berthe; from that moment this name was chosen; and as old 
Rouault could not come, Monsieur Homais was requested to 
stand godfather. His gifts were all products from his estab- 
lishment, to wit: six boxes of jujubes, a whole jar of raca- 
hout, three cakes of marsh-mallow paste, and six sticks of 
sugar-candy into the bargain that he had come across in a 
cupboard. On the evening of the ceremony there was a grand 
dinner; the curé was present; there was much excitement. 
Monsieur Homais towards liqueur-time began singing “Le Dieu 
des bonnes gens.” Monsieur Léon sang a barcarolle, and 
Madame Bovary, senior, who was godmother, a romance of the 
time of the Empire; finally, M. Bovary, senior, insisted on having 
the child brought down, and began baptizing it with a glass 
of champagne that he poured over its head. This mockery 
of the first of the sacraments made the Abbé Bournisien angry; 
old Bovary replied by a quotation from “La Guerre des Dieux ;” 
the curé wanted to leave; the ladies implored, Homais inter- 
fered; and they succeeded in making the priest sit down again, 
and he quietly went on with the half-finished coffee in his 
saucer. 

Monsieur Bovary, senior, stayed at Yonville a month, dazzling 
the natives by a superb policeman’s cap with silver tassels 
that he wore in the morning when he smoked his pipe in the 
square. Being also in the habit of drinking a good deal of 
brandy, he often sent the servant to the Lion d’Or to buy 
him a bottle, which was put down to his son’s account, and 
to perfume his handkerchiefs he used up his daughter-in-law’s 
whole supply of eau-de-cologne. 


70 MADAME BOVARY 


The latter did not at all dislike his company. He had 
knocked about the world, he talked about Berlin, Vienna, and 
Strasbourg, of his soldier times, of the mistresses he had had, 
the grand luncheons of which he had partaken; then he was 
amiable, and sometimes even, either on the stairs or in the 
garden, would seize hold of her waist, crying, “Charles, look 
out for yourself.” 

Then Madame Bovary, senior, became alarmed for her son’s 
happiness, and fearing that her husband might in the long-run 
have an immoral influence upon the ideas of the young woman, 
took care to hurry their departure. Perhaps she had more 
serious reasons for uneasiness. Monsieur Bovary was not the 
man to respect anything. 

One day Emma was suddenly seized with the desire to see 
her little girl, who had been put to nurse with the carpenter’s 
wife, and, without looking at the almanack to see whether the 
six weeks of the Virgin were yet passed, she set out for the 
Rollets’ house, situated at the extreme end of the village, be- 
tween the highroad and the fields. 

It was mid-day, the shutters of the houses were closed, and 
the slate roofs that glittered beneath the fierce light of the 
blue sky seemed to strike sparks from the crest of their gables. 
A heavy wind was blowing; Emma felt weak as she walked; 
the stones of the pavement hurt her; she was doubtful whether 
she would not go home again, or go in somewhere to rest. 

At this moment Monsieur Léon came out from a neighbouring 
door with a bundle of papers under his arm. He came to 
greet her, and stood in the shade in front of Lheureux’s shop 
under the projecting grey awning. 

Madame Bovary said she was going to see her baby, but 
that she was beginning to grow tired. 

“Tf——” said Léon, not daring to go on. 

“Have you any business to attend to?” she asked. 

And on the clerk’s answer, she begged him to accompany 
her. That same evening this was known in Yonville, and 
Madame Tuvache, the mayor’s wife, declared in the presence 
of her servant that “Madame Bovary was compromising herself.” 

To get to the nurse’s it was necessary to turn to the left 
on leaving the street, as if making for the cemetery, and to 
follow between little houses and yards a small path bordered 
with privet hedges. They were in bloom, and so were the 
speedwells, eglantines, thistles, and the sweetbriar that sprang 
up from the thickets. Through openings in the hedges one 
could see into the huts, some pig on a dung-heap, or tethered 
cows rubbing their horns against the trunk/of trees. The t-vo. 


MADAME BOVARY 71 


side by side, walked slowly, she leaning upon him, and he re- 
straining his pace, which he regulated by hers; in front of 
them a swarm of midges fluttered, buzzing in the warm air. 

They recognised the house by an old walnut-tree which 
shaded it. Low and covered with brown tiles, there hung out- 
side it, beneath the dormer-window of the garret, a string of 
onions. Faggots upright against a thorn fence surrounded a 
bed of lettuces, a few square feet of lavender, and sweet peas 
strung on sticks. Dirty water was running here and there on 
the grass, and all round were several indefinite rags, knitted 
stockings, a red calico jacket, and a large sheet of coarse 
linen spread over the hedge. At the noise of the gate the 
nurse appeared with a baby she was suckling on one arm. 
With her other hand she was pulling along a poor puny little 
fellow, his face covered with scrofula, the son of a Rouen 
hosier, whom his parents, too taken up with their business, 
left in the country. 

“Go in,” she said; “your little one ts there asleep.” 

The room on the ground-floor, the only one in the dwelling, 
had at its farther end, against the wall, a large bed without 
curtains, while a kneading-trough took up the side by the 
window, one pane of which was mended with a piece of blue 
paper. In the corner behind the door, shining hob-nailed shoes 
stood in a row under the slab of the washstand, near a 
bottle of oil with a feather stuck in its mouth; a Matthieu 
Laensberg lay on the dusty mantelpiece amid gunflints, candle- 
ends, and bits of amadou. Finally, the last luxury in the 
apartment was a “Fame” blowing her trumpets, a picture cut 
out, no doubt, from some perfumer’s prospectus and nailed 
to the wall with six wooden shoe-pegs. 

Emma’s child was asleep in a wicker-cradle. She took it up 
in the wrapping that enveloped it and began singing softly as 
she rocked herself to and fro. 

Léon walked up and down the room; it seemed strange to 

him to see this beautiful woman in her nankeen dress in the 
midst of all this poverty. Madame Bovary reddened; he 
turned away, thinking perhaps there had been an impertinent 
look in his eyes. Then she put back the little girl, who had 
just been sick over her collar. The nurse at once came to 
dry her, protesting that it wouldn’t show. 
_ “She gives me other doses,” she said: “I am always a-washing 
of her. If you would have the goodness to order Camus, the 
grocer, to let me have a little soap; it would really be more 
convenient for you, as I needn‘t trouble you then.” 

“Very well! very well!” said Emma. “Good morning, Ma- 


7B MADAME BOVARY 


dame Rollet,” and she went out, wiping her shoes at the door. 

The good woman accompanied her to the end of the garden, 
talking all the time of the trouble she had getting up of nights. 

“I’m that worn out sometimes as I drop asleep on my chair. 
I’m sure you might at least give me just a pound of ground 
coffee; that’d last me a month, and I'd take it of a morning 
with some milk.” 

After having submitted to her thanks, Madame Bovary left. 
She had gone a little way down the path when, at the sound 
of wooden shoes, she turned round. It was the nurse. 

“What is it?” 

Then the peasant woman, taking her aside behind an elm 
tree, began talking to her of her husband, who with his trade 
and six francs a year that the captain-—— 

“Oh, be quick!” said Emma. 

“Well,” the nurse went on, heaving sighs between each 
word, “I’m afraid he’ll be put out seeing me have coffee alone, 
you know men # 

“But you are to have some,’ Emma repeated; “I will give 
you some. You bother me!” 

“Oh, dear! my poor, dear lady! you see, in consequence of 
his wounds he has terrible cramps in the chest. He even says 
that cider weakens him.” 

“Do make haste, Mére Rollet!” 

“Well,” the latter continued, making a curtsey, “if it weren’t 
asking too much,” and she curtsied once more, “if you would” 
—and her eyes begged—‘“a jar of brandy,” she said at last, “and 
I’d rub your little one’s feet with it; they’re as tender as one’s 
tongue.” 

Once rid of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur Léon’s 
arm. She walked fast for some time, then more slowly, and 
looking straight in front of her, her eyes rested on the shoulder 
of the young man, whose frock-coat had a black-velvet collar. 
His brown hair fell over it, straight and carefully arranged. 
She noticed his nails, which were longer than one wore them at 
Yonville. It was one of the clerk’s chief occupations to trim 
them, and for this purpose he kept a special knife in his 
writing-desk. 

They returned to Yonville by the water-side. In the warm 
season the bank, wider than at other times, showed to their 
foot the garden wells whence a few steps led to the river. It 
flowed noiselessly, swift, and cold to the eye; long, thin grasses 
huddled together in it as the current drove them, and spread 
themselves upon the limpid water like streaming hair; some- 
times at the top of the reeds or on the leaf of a water-lily an 





MADAME BOVARY 73 


insect with fine legs crawled or rested. The sun pierced with 
a ray the small blue bubbles of the waves that, breaking, fol- 
lowed each other; branchless old willows mirrored their grey 
backs in the water; beyond, all around, the meadows seemed 
empty. It was the dinner-hour at the farms, and the young 
woman and her companion heard nothing as they walked but 
the fall of their steps on the earth of the path, the words 
they spoke, and the sound cf Emma’s dress rustling round her. 

The walls of the gardens with pieces of bottle on their coping 
were hot as the glass windows of a conservatory. Wallflowers 
had sprung up beween the bricks, and with the tip of her open 
sunshade Madame Bovary, as she passed, made some of their 
faded flowers crumble into a yellow dust, or a spray of over- 
hanging honeysuckle and clematis caught in its fringe and 
dangled for a moment over the silk. 

They were talking of a troupe of Spanish dancers who were 
expected shortly at the Rouen theatre. 

“Are you going?” she asked. 

“Tf I can,” he answered. 

. Had they nothing else to say to one another? Yet their 
eyes were full of more serious speech, and while they forced 
themselves to find trivial phrases, they felt the same languor 
stealing over them both. It was the whisper of the soul, deep, 
continuous, dominating that of their voices. Surprised with 
wonder at this strange sweetness, they did not think of speaking 
of the sensation or of seeking its cause. Coming joys, like 
tropical shores, throw over the immensity before them their 
inborn softness, an odorous wind, and we are lulled by ay 
intoxication without a thought of the horizon that we do no 
even know. 

In one place the ground had been trodden down by the 
cattle; they had to step on large green stones put here and 
there in the mud. She often stopped a moment to look where 
to place her foot, and tottering on the stone that shook, her 
arms outspread, her form bent forward with a look of inde- 
cision, she would laugh, afraid of falling into the puddles of 
water. 

When they arrived in front of her garden, Madame Bovary 
opened the little gate, ran up the steps and disappeared. 

Léon returned to his office. His chief was away; he just 
glanced at the briefs, then cut himself a pen, and at last 
took up his hat and went out. 

He went to La Pature at the top of the Argueil hills at the 
beginning of the forest; he threw himself upon the ground 
under the pines and watched the sky through his fingers. 


4 


74 MADAME BOVARY 


“How bored I am!” he said to himself, “how bored I am!” 

He thought he was to be pitied for living in this village, with 
Homais for a friend and Monsieur Guillaumin for master. 
The latter, entirely absorbed by his business, wearing gold- 
rimmed spectacles and red whiskers over a white cravat, un- 
derstood nothing of mental refinements, although he affected a 
stiff English manner, which in the beginning had impressed 
the clerk. 

As to the chemist’s spouse, she was the best wife in Nor- 
mandy, gentle as a sheep, loving her children, her father, her 
mother, her cousins, weeping for others’ woes, letting every- 
thing go in her household, and detesting corsets; but so slow 
of movement, such a bore to listen to, so common in appearance, 
and of such restricted conversation, that although she was 
thirty, he only twenty, although they slept in rooms next each 
other and he spoke to her daily, he never thought that she 
might be a woman for another, or that she possessed anything 
else of her sex than the gown. 

And what else was there? Binet, a few shopkeepers, two 
or three publicans, the curé, and, finally, Monsieur Tuvache, 
the mayor, with his two sons, rich, crabbed, obtuse persons, 
who farmed their own lands and had feasts among them- 
selves, bigoted to boot, and quite unbearable companions. 

But from the general background of all these human faces 
Emma’s stood out isolated and yet farthest off; for between 
her and him he seemed to see a vague abyss. 

In the beginning he had called on her several times along 
with the druggist. Charles had not appeared particularly 
anxious to see him again, and Léon did not know what to 
do between his fear of being indiscreet and the desire for 
an intimacy that seemed almost tmpossible. 


IV 


HEN the first cold days set in Emma left her bedroom 
for the sitting-room, a long apartment with a low ceil- 

ing, in which there was on the mantel-piece a large bunch of © 
coral spread out against the looking-glass. Seated in her 
arm-chair near the window, she could see the villagers pass 
long the pavement. é 
Twice a day Léon went from his office to the Lion d’Or. 
Emma could hear him coming from afar; she leant forward 
listening, and the young man glided past the curtain, always 
dressed in the same way, and without turning his head. But 
in the twilight, when, her chin resting on her left hand, she 


MADAME BOVARY _ re 


let the embroidery she had begun fall on her knees, she often 
shuddered at the apparition of this shadow suddenly gliding 
past. She would get up and order the table to be laid. 

Monsieur Homais called at dinner-time. Skull-cap in hand, 
he came in on tiptoe, in order to disturb no one, always re: 
peating the same phrase, “Good evening, everybody.” Then, 
when he had taken his seat at table between the pair, he asked 
the doctor about his patients, and the latter consulted him as 
to the probability of their payment. Next they talked of “what 
was in the paper.” Homais by this hour knew it almost by 
heart, and he repeated it f:om end to end, with the reflections 
of the penny-a-liners, and all the stories of individual catas-~ 
trophes that had occurred in France or abroad. But the sub- 
ject becoming exhausted, he was not slow in throwing out 
some remarks on the dishes before him. Sometimes even, 
half-rising, he delicately pointed out to madame the tenderest 
morsel, or turning to the servant, gave her some advice on the 
manipulation of stews and the hygiene of seasoning. He talked 
aroma, osmazome, juices, and gelatine in a bewildering manner. 
Moreover, Homais, with his head fuller of recipes than his 
shop of jars, excelled in making all kinds of preserves, vine: 
gars, and sweet liqueurs; he knew also all the iatest invention: 
in economic stoves, together with the art of preserving cheeses 
and of curing sick wines.. 

At eight o’clock Justin came to fetch him to shut up the 
shop. Then Monsieur Homais gave him a sly look, especially 
if Félicité was there, for he had noticed that his apprentice was 
fond of the doctor’s house. 

“The young dog,” he said, “is beginning to have ideas, and 
the devil take me if I don’t believe he’s in love with your 
servant!” 

But a more serious fault with which he reproached Justin 
was his constantly listening to conversation. On Sunday, for 
‘example, one could not get him out of the drawing-room, whither 
Madame Homais had called him to fetch the children, who 
were falling asleep in the arm-chairs, and dragging down with 
their backs calico chair-covers that were too large. 

Not many people came to these soirées at the chemist’s, his 
scandal-mongering and political opinions having successfully 
alienated various respectable persons from him. The. clerk 
never failed to be there. As soon as he heard the bell he ran 
to meet Madame Bovary, took her shawl, and put away under 
the shop-counter the thick list shoes that she wore over her 
boots when there was snow. 

First they played some hands at trente-et-un; next Monsieur 


76 MADAME BOVARY 


Homais played écarté with Emma; Léon behind her gave her 
advice. Standing up with his hands on the back of her chair, 
he saw the teeth of her comb that bit into her chignon. With 
every movement that she made to throw her cards the right 
side of her dress was drawn up. From her turned-up hair a 
dark colour fell over her back, and growing gradually paler, 
lost itself little by little in the shade. Then her dress fell on 
both sides of her chair, puffing out full of folds, and reached 
the ground. When Léon occasionally felt the sole of his boot 
resting on it, he drew back as if he had trodden upon some one. 

When the game of cards was over, the druggist and the 
Doctor played dominoes, and Emma, changing her place, leant 
her elbow on the table, turning over the leaves of “L’Illustra- 
tion.” She had brought her ladies’ journal with her. Léon 
sat down near her; they looked at the engravings together, 
and waited for one another at the bottom of the pages. She 
often begged him to read her the verses; Léon declaimed 
them in a languid voice, to which he carefully gave a dying 
fall in the love passages. But the noise of the dominoes 
annoyed him. Monsieur Homais was strong at the game; he 
could beat Charles and give him a double-six. Then the three 
hundred finished, they both stretched themselves out in front 
of the fire, and were soon asleep. The fire was dying out in 
the cinders; the teapot was empty, Léon was still reading. 
Emma listened to him, mechanically turning round the lamp- 
shade, on the gauze of which were painted clowns in carriages, 
and tight-rope dancers with their balancing-poles. Léon stopped, 
pointing with a gesture to his sleeping audience; then they 
talked in low tones, and their conversation seemed the more 
sweet to them because it was unheard. 

Thus a kind of bond was established between them, a 
constant commerce of books and of romances. Monsieur Bo- 
vary, little given to jealousy, did not trouble himself about it. 

On his birthday he received a beautiful phrenological head, 
all marked with figures to the thorax and painted blue. This 
was an attention of the clerk’s. He showed him many others, 
even to doing errands for him at Rouen; and the book of a. 
novelist having made the mania for cactuses fashionable, Léon 
bought some for Madame Bovary, bringing them back on his 
knees in the “Hirondelle,” pricking his fingers with their hard 
hairs. 

She had a board with a balustrade fixed against her window 
to hold the pots. The clerk, too, had his small hanging garden; 
they saw each other tending their flowers at their windows. 

Of the windows of the village there was one yet more often 


MADAME BOVARY 77 


occupied; for on Sundays from morning to night, and every 
morning when the weather was bright, one could see at the 
dormer-window of a garret the profile of Monsieur Binet bend- 
ing over his lathe, whose monotonous humming could be heard 
at the Lion d’Or. 

One evening on coming home Léon found in his room a rug 
in velvet and wool with leaves on a pale ground. He called 
Madame Homais, Monsieur Homais, Justin, the children, the 
cook; he spoke of it to his chief; every one wanted to see. 
this rug. Why did the doctor’s wife give the clerk presents? } 
It looked queer. They decided that she must be his lover.“ 

He made this seem likely, so ceaselessly did he talk of her 
charms and of her wit; so much so, that Binet once roughly 
answered him— 

“What does it matter to me since I’m not in her set?” 

He tortured himself to find out how he could make his 
declaration to her, and always halting between the fear of 
displeasing her and the shame of being such a coward, he: 
wept with discouragement and desire. Then he took ener- 
getic resolutions, wrote letters that he tore up, put it off to 
times that he again deferred. Often he set out with the | 
determination to dare all; but this resolution soon deserted him 
in Emma’s presence, and when Charles, dropping in, invited 
him to jump into his chaise to go with him to see some patient 


in the neighbourhood, he at once accepted, bowed to madame, 


and went out. Her husband, was he not something belonging 
to her? 

As to Emma, she did not ask herself whether she loved. 
Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts 
and lightnings,—a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, 
revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the 
whole heart into the abyss. She did not know that on the 
terrace of houses it makes lakes when the pipes are choked, 
and she would thus have remained in her security when she 
suddenly discovered a rent in the wall of it. 


Vi 


[t was a Sunday in February, an afternoon when the snow 
was falling. 
They had all, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, Homais, and 
Monsieur Léon, gone to see a yarn-mill that was being built 
in the valley a mile and a half from Yonville. The druggig: 


73 MADAME BOVARY 


had taken Napoleon and Athalie to give them some exercise, 
and Justin accompanied them, carrying the umbrellas on his 
shoulder. 

Nothing, however, could be less curious than this curiosity. 
A great piece of waste ground, on which peil-mell, amid a 
mass of sand and stones, were a few brake-wheels, already 
rusty, surrounded by a quadrangular building pierced by a 
number of little windows. The building was unfinished; the 
sky couid be seen through the joists of the roofing. Attached 
to the stop-plank of the gable a bunch of straw mixed with 
corn-ears fluttered its tricoloured ribbons in the wind. 

Homais was talking. He explained to the company the future 
importance of this establishment, computed the strength of the 
floorings, the thickness of the walls, and regretted extremely 
not having a yard-stick such as Monsieur Binet possessed for 
his own special use. 

Emma, who had taken his arm, bent lightly against his 
shoulder, and she looked at the sun’s disc shedding afar through 
the mist his pale splendour. She turned. Charles was there. 
His cap was drawn down over his eyebrows, and his two thick 
lips were trembling, which added a look of stupidity to his 
face; his very back, his calm back, was irritating to behold, and 
she saw written upon his coat all the platitude of the bearer. 

While she was considering him thus, tasting in her irritation 
»a sort of depraved pleasure, Léon made a step forward. The 
’ cold that made him pale seemed to add a more gentle languor to 
his face; between his cravat and his neck the somewhat loose 
collar of his shirt showed the skin; the lobe of his ear looked 
out from beneath a lock of hair, and his large blue eyes, raised 
to the clouds, seemed to Emma more limpid and more beautiful 
than those mountain-lakes where the heavens are mirrored. 

“Wretched boy!” suddenly cried the chemist. 

And he ran to his son, who had just precipitated himself into 
a heap of lime in order to whiten his boots. At the reproaches 
with which he was being overwhelmed Napoleon began to roar, 
while Justin dried his shoes with a wisp of straw. But a 
knife was wanted; Charles offered his. 

“Ah!” she said to herself, “he carries a knife in his pocket 
like a peasant.” 

The hoar-frost was falling, and they turned back to Yonville. 

In the evening Madame Bovary did not go to her neigh- 
peur’s, and when Charles had left and she felt herself alone, 
the comparison re-began with the clearness of a sensation almost 
actual, and with that lengthening of perspective which memory — 
zives to things. Looking from her bed at the clean fire that — 





MADAME BOVARY 79 


was burning, she still saw, as she had down there, Léon stand- 
ing up with one hand bending his cane, and with the other 
holding Athalie, who was quietly sucking a piece of ice. She 
thought him charming; she could not tear herself away from 
him; she recalled his other attitudes on other days, the words 
he had spoken, the sound of his voice, his whole person; and 
she repeated, pouting out her lips as if for a kiss— 

“Yes, charming! charming! Is he not in love?” she asked 
herself; “but with whom? With me?” 

All the proofs arose before her at once; her heart leapt. The 
flame of the fire threw a joyous light upon the ceiling; she 
turned on her back, stretching out her arms. 

Then began the eternal lamentation: “Oh, if Heaven had 
but willed it! And why not? What prevented it?” 

When Charles came home at midnight, she seemed to have 
just awakened, and as he made a noise undressing, she com- 
plained of a headache, then asked carelessly what had hap- 
pened that evening. 

“Monsieur Léon,” he said, “went to his room early.” 

She could not help smiling, and she fell asleep, her soul 
filled with a new delight. 

- The next day, at dusk, she received a visit from Monsieur 

Lhereux, the draper. He was a man of ability, was this shop- 
keeper. Born a Gascon but bred a Norman, he grafted upon 
-his southern volubility the cunning of the Cauchois. His fat, 
flabby, beardless face seemed dyed by a decoction of liquorice, 
-and his white hair made even more vivid the keen brilliance 
of his small black eyes. No one knew what he had been 
formerly; a pedlar said some, a banker at Routot according 
-to others. What was certain was, that he made complex cal- 
culations in his head that would have frightened Binet him- 
self. Polite to obsequiousness, he always held himself with 
his back bent in the position of one who bows or who invites. 

After leaving at the door: his hat surrounded with crape, 
he put down a green bandbox on the table, and began by com- 
plaining to madame, with many civilities, that he should have 
remained till that day without gaining her confidence. A poor 
shop like his was not made to attract a “fashionable lady;” 
he emphasised the words; yet she had only to command, and 
he would undertake to provide her with anything she might 
wish, either in haberdashery or linen, millinery or fancy goods, 
for he went to town regularly four times a month. He was con- 
nected with the best houses. You could speak of him at the 
“Trois Fréres,” at the “Barbe d’Or,” or at the “Grand Sauvage” 
‘all these gentlemen knew him as well as the insides of thei- 


es ewer 


EES 
a 


pe 
' 


“30 MADAME BOVARY 


pockets. To-day, then, he had come to show madame, in pass- 
ing, various articles he happened to have, thanks to the most 
rare opportunity. And he pulled out half-a-dozen embroidered 
<ollars from the box. 

Madame Bovary examined them. “I do not require any- 
thing,’ she said. 

Then Monsieur Lheureux delicately exhibited three Algerian 
scarves, several packets of English needles, a pair of straw 
siippers, and, finally, four eggcups in cocoa-nut wood, carved 
in open work by convicts. Then, with both hands on the table, 
his neck stretched out, his figure bent forward, open-mouthed, 
he watched Emma’s look, who was walking up and down unde- 
cided amid these goods. From time to time, as if to remove 
some dust, he filliped with his nail the silk of the scarves 
spread out at full length, and they rustled with a little noise, 
making in the green twilight the gold spangles of their tissue 
scintillate like little stars. 

_¢ “How much are they?” 
</ “A mere nothing,” he replied, “a mere nothing. But there’s 
no hurry; whenever it’s convenient. We are not Jews.” 

She reflected for a few moments, and ended by again de- 
clining Monsieur Lheureux’s offer. He replied quite uncon- 
cernedly— 

“Very well. We shall understand one another by and by. I 
have always got on with ladies—if I didn’t with my own!” 

Emma smiled. 

“I wanted to tell you,” he went on good-naturedly, after his 
joke, “that it isn’t the money I should trouble about. Why, 
I could give you some, if need be.” 

She made a gesture of surprise. 

“Ah!” said he quickly and in a low voice, “I shouldn’t have 
to go far to find you some, rely on that.” 

And he began asking after Peére Tellier, the proprietor of 
the “Café Francais,” whom Monsieur Bovary was then attending. 

“What’s the matter with Pére Tellier? He coughs so that 
he shakes his whole house, and I’m afraid he'll soon want a 
deal cavering rather than a flannel vest. He was such a rake 
as a young man! Those sort of people, madame, have not the 
least regularity; he’s burnt up with brandy. Still it’s sad, all 
the seme, to see an acquaintance go off.” 

An* while he fastened up his box he discoursed about the 
doct-*’s patients. | 

“Tt’s the weather, no doubt,” he said, looking frowningly at — 
the floor, “that causes these illnesses. I, too,, don’t feel the 
4. One of these days I shail even have to consult the 


MADAME BOVARY 81 


doctor for a pain I have in my back. Well, good-bye, Madame 
Bovary. At your service; your very humble servant.” And 
he closed the door gently. 

Emma had her dinner served in her bedroom on a tray by 
the fireside; she was a long time over it; everything was well 
with her. 

“How good I was!” she said to herself, thinking of the 
scarves. 

She heard some steps on the stairs. It was Léon. She got 
up and took from the chest of drawers the first pile of dusters 
to be hemmed. When he came in she seemed very busy. 

The conversation languished; Madame Bovary gave it up 
every few minutes, whilst he himself seemed quite embarrassed. 
Seated on a low chair near the fire, he turned round in his 
fingers the ivory thimble-case. She stitched on, or from time 
to time turned down the hem of the cloth with her nail. She 
did not speak; he was silent, captivated by her silence, as he 
would have been by her speech. 

“Poor fellow!” she thought. 

“How have I displeased her?” he asked himself. 

At last, however, Léon said that he should have, one of these 
days, to go to Rouen on some office business. 

“Your music subscription is out; am I to renew it?” 

“No,” she replied. 

“Why ?” 

“Because—— 
And pursing her lips she slowly drew a long stitch of grey 
thread. 

- This work irritated Léon. It seemed to roughen the ends 
of her fingers. A gallant phrase came into his head, but he 
did not risk it. 

“Then you are giving it up?” he went on. 

“What?” she asked hurriedly. “Music? Ah! yes! Have © 
not my house to look after, my husband to attend to, a thousand 
things, in fact, many duties that must be considered first?” 

She looked at the clock. Charles was late. Then she affected 
anxiety. Two or three times she even repeated, “He is so good!” 

The clerk was fond of Monsieur Bovary. But this tender- 
ness on his behalf astonished him unpleasantly; nevertheless he 
took up his praises, which he said every one was singing, es- 
pecially the chemist. 

“Ah! he is a good fellow,” continued Emma. 

“Certainly,” replied the clerk. 

And he began talking of Madame Homais, whose very untidy 
appearance generally made them laugh. 


”? 


82 MADAME BOVARY 


“What does it matter?” interrupted Emma. “A good house- 
wife does not trouble about her appearance.” 

Then she relapsed into silence. 

It was the same on the following days; her talks, her man- 
ners, everything changed. She took interest in the house- 
work, went to church regularly, and looked after her servant 
with more severity. 

She took Berthe from nurse. When visitors called, Félicité 
‘brought her in, and Madame Bovary undressed her to show 
off her limbs. She declared she adored children; this was her 
consolation, her joy, her passion, and she accompanied her 
«aresses with lyrical outbursts which would have reminded 
any one but the Yonville people of Sachette in “Notre Dame 
de Paris.” 

When Charles came home he found his slippers put to warm 
near the fre. His waistcoat now never wanted lining, nor 
his shirt buttons, and it was quite a pleasure to see in the 
cupboard the night-caps arranged in piles of the same height. 
She no longer grumbled as formerly at taking a turn in the 
garden; what he proposed was always done, although she did 
not understand the wishes to which she submitted without a 
murmur; and when Léon saw him by his fireside after dinner, 
his two hands on his stomach, his two feet on the fender, his 
cheeks red with feeding, his eyes moist with happiness, the 
child crawling along the carpet, and this woman with the 
slender waist who came behind his arm-chair to kiss his 
forehead: 

“What madness!” he _ said to himself. “And how to reach 
her!” 

And thus she seemed so virtuous and inaccessible to him that 
he lost ali hope, even the faintest. But by this renunciation 
he placed her on an extraordinary pinnacle. To him she stood 
outside those fleshly attributes from which he had nothing to 
obtain, and in his heart she rose ever, and became farther re- 
moved from him after the magnificent manner of an apotheosis 
that is taking wing. It was one of those pure feelings that 
do not interfere with life, that are cultivaed because they are 


rare, and whose loss would afflict more than their passion re- 


f joices. 


é 


Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer. With 
her black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline nose, her birdlike 
walk, and always silent now, did she not seem to be passing 
through life scarcely touching it, and to bear on her brow the. 
vague impress of some divine destiny? She was so sad and 
#” calm, at once so gentle and so reserved, that near her one 


MADAME BOVARY 83 


felt oneself seized by an icy charm, as we shudder in churches 
at the perfume of the flowers mingling with the cold of the 
marble. The others even did not escape from this seduction. 
The chemist said— 

“She is a woman of great parts, who wouldn’t be misplaced 
in a sub-prefecture.” 

The housewives admired her economy, the patients her po- 
liteness, the poor her charity. 

But she was eaten up with desires, with rage, with hate. 
That dress with the narrow folds hid a distracted heart, of 
whose torment those chaste lips said nothing. She was in love 
with Léon, and sought solitude that she might with the more 
ease delight in his image. The sight of his form troubled the 
voluptuousness of this meditation. Emma thrilled at the sound 
of his step; then in his presence the emotion subsided, and 
afterwards there remained to her only an immense astonishment 
that ended in sorrow. 

Léon did not know that when he left her in despair she 
rose after he had gone to see him in the street. She concerned 
herself about his comings and goings; she watched his face; 
she invented quite a history to find an excuse for going to 
his room. The chemist’s wife seemed happy to her to sleep 
under the same roof, and her thoughts constantly centred upon 
this house, like the “Lion d’Or” pigeons, who came there to 
dip their red feet and white wings in its gutters. But the 
more Emma recognised her love, the more she crushed it down, 
that it might not be evident, that she might make it less. She 
would have liked Léon to guess it, and she imagined chances, 
catastrophes that should facilitate this. What restrained her 
was, no doubt, idleness and fear, and a sense of shame also. 
She thought she had repulsed him too much, that the time 
was past, that all was lost. Then, pride, the joy of being able to 
say to herself, “I am virtuous,” and to look at herself in the 
glass taking resigned poses, consoled her a little for the sac- 
rifice she believed she was making. 

Then the lusts of the flesh, the longing for money, and the 
melancholy of passion all blended themselves into one suffering, 
and instead of turning her thoughts from it, she clave to it the 
more, urging herself to pain, and seeking everywhere occasion 
for it. She was irritated by an ill-served dish or by a half- 
open door; bewailed the velvets she had not, the . happiness 
tshe had missed, her too exalted dreams, her narrow home. 
| What exasperated her was that Charles did not seem to 
lnotice her anguish. His conviction that he was making’ her 
jranpy seemed to her an imbecile insult, and his sureness on 


84 MADAME BOVARY 


this point ingratitude. For whose sake, then, was she virtuous? 
Was it not for him, the obstacle to all felicity, the cause of 
all misery, and, as it were, the sharp clasp of that complex 
strap that buckled her in on all sides? 

On him alone, then, she concentrated all the various hatreds 
that resulted from her boredom, and every effort to diminish 
only augmented it; for this useless trouble was added to the 
other reasons for despair, and contributed still more to the 
separation between them. Her own gentleness to herself made 
her rebel against him. Domestic mediocrity drove her to lewd 
fancies, marriage tenderness to adulterous desires. She would 
have liked Charies to beat her, that she might have a better 
right to hate him, to revenge herself upon him. She was sur- 
prised sometimes at the atrocious conjectures that came into 
her thoughts, and she had to go on smiling, to hear repeated 
to her at all hours that she was happy, to pretend to be happy,. 
to let it be believed. 

Yet she had loathing of this hypocrisy. She was seized with 
the temptation to flee somewhere with Léon to try a new life; 
but at once a vague chasm full of darkness opened within her 
soul. 

“Besides, he no longer loves me,” she thought. “What is to 
become of me? What help is to be hoped for, what consola- 
tion, what solace?” 

She was left broken, breathless, inert, sobbing in a low voice, 
with flowing tears. 

“Why don’t you tell master?” the servant asked her when 
she came in during these crises. 

“Tt is the nerves,” said Emma. “Do not speak to him of it; 
it would worry him.” 

“Ah! yes,” Feélicité went on, “you are just like La Guérine, 
Pére Guérin’s daughter, the fisherman at Pollet, that I used to 
know at Dieppe before I came to you. She was so sad, so 
sad, to see her standing upright on the threshold of her house, 
she seemed to you like a winding-sheet spread out:before the 
door. Her illness, it appears, was a kind of fog that she had 
in her head, and the doctors could not do anything, nor the 
priest either. When she was taken too bad she went off quite 
alone to the sea-shore, so that the customs officer, going his 
rounds, often found her lying flat on her face, crying on the 
shingle. Then, after her marriage, it went off, they say.” 

“But with me,” replied Emma, “it was after marriage that 
it began.” 


MADAME BOVARY 83 


vr 


Q)NE evening when the window was open, and she, sitting 
by it, had been watching Lestiboudois, the beadle, trim- 
ming the box, she suddenly heard the Angelus ringing. 

It was the beginning of April, when the primroses are in 
dloom, and a warm wind blows over the flower-beds newly 
turned, and the gdrdens, like women, seem to be getting ready 
for the summer fétes. Through the bars of the arbour and 
away beyond, the river could be seen in the fields, meandering 
through the grass in wandering curves. The evening vapours 
rose between the leafless poplars, touching their outlines with a 
violet tint, paler and more transparent than a subtle gauze 
taught athwart their branches. In the distance cattle moved 
about; neither their steps nor their lowing could be heard; 
and the bell, still ringing through the air, kept up its peaceful 
amentation. 

With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young woman 
ost themselves in old memories of her youth and school-days. 
She remembered the great candlesticks that rose above the 
vases full of flowers on the altar, and the tabernacle with its 
small columns. She would have liked to be once more lost 
n the long line of white veils, marked off here and there by 
the stiff black hoods of the good sisters bending over their 
yrie-Dieu. At mass on Sundays, when she looked up, she saw 
the gentle face of the Virgin amid the blue smoke of the rising 
mcense. Then she was moved; she felt herself weak and quite 
leserted, like the down of a bird whirled by the tempest, and 
t was unconsciously that she went towards the church, inclined 
:o no matter what devotions, so that her soul was absorbed 
and all existence lost in it. 

On the Place she met Lestiboudois on his way back, for, in 
order not to shorten his day’s labour, he preferred interrupting 
iis work, then beginning it again, so that he rang the Angelus 
(0 suit his own convenience. Besides, the ringing over a 
ittle earlier warned the lads of catechism hour. 

Already a few who had arrived were playing marbles on 
the stones of the cemetery. Others, astride the wall, swung 
heir legs, kicking with their clogs the large nettles growing 
vetween the little enclosure and the newest graves. This was 
the only green spot. All the rest was but stones, always cov- 
red with a fine powder, despite the vestry-broom. 

The children in list shoes ran about there as if it were an 
snclosure made for them. The shouts of their voices could be 





86 MADAME BOVARY 


heard through the humming of the bell. This grew less and 
less with the swinging of the great rope that, hanging from 
the top of the belfry, dragged its end on the ground. Swal- 
lows flitted to and fro uttering little cries, cut the air with the 
edge of their wings, and swiftly returned to their yellow nests 
under the tiles of the coping. At the end of the church a lamp 
was burning, the wick of a night-light in a glass hung up. Its 
light from a distance looked like a white stain trembling in the 
oil. A long ray of the sun fell across the nave and seemed 
to darken the lower sides and the corners. 

“Where is the curé?” asked Madame Bovary of one of the 
lads, who was amusing himself by shaking a swivel in a hole 
too large for it. 

“He is just coming,” he answered. 

And in fact the door of the presbytery grated; Abbé Bour- 
nisien appeared; the children, pell-mell, fled into the church. 

“These young scamps!”’ murmured the priest, “always the 
same!” Then, picking up a catechism all in rags that he had 
struck with his foot, “They respect nothing!’ But as soon 
as he caught sight of Madame Bovary, “Excuse me,” he said; 
“T did not recognise you.” 

He thrust the catechism into his pocket, and stopped short, 
balancing the heavy vestry key between his two fingers. 

The light of the setting sun that fell full upon his face paled 
the lasting of his cassock, shiny at the elbows, unravelled at 
the hem. Grease and tobacco stains followed along his broad 
chest the lines of the buttons, and grew more numerous the 
farther they were from his neckcloth, in which the massive 
folds of his red chin rested; this was dotted with yellow spots, 
that disappeared beneath the coarse hair of his greyish beard. 
He had just dined, and was breathing noisily. 

“How are your” he added. 

“Not well,” replied Emma; “I am ill.” 

“Well, and so am I,” answered the priest. “These first warm 
days weaken one most remarkably, don’t they? But, after all, 
we are born to suffer, as St. Paul says. But what does Mon- 
sieur Bovary think of it?” 

“He!” she said with a gesture of contempt. 

“What!” replied the good fellow, quite astonished, “doesn’t 
he prescribe something for you?” 

“Ah!” said Emma, “it is no earthly remedy I need.” 

But the curé from time to time looked into the church, where 
the kneeling boys were shoulderihg one another, and tumbling 
over like packs of cards. 

“T should like to know——” she went on. 


MADAME BOVARY 87 


“You look out, Riboudet,” cried the priest in an angry voice; 
“T’ll warm your ears, you imp!” Then turning to Emma. “He’s 
Boudet the carpenter’s son; his parents are well off, and let 
him do just as he pleases. Yet he could learn quickly if he 
would, for he is very sharp. And so sometimes for a joke 
I call him Riboudet (like the road one takes to go to Maromme), 
and I even say ‘Mon Riboudet.’ Ha! ha! ‘Mont Riboudet.’ 
The other day I repeated that jest to Monsignor, and he laughed 
at it; he condescended to laugh at it. And how is Monsieur 
Bovary?” 

She seemed not to hear him. And he went on— 

“Always very busy, no doubt; for he and I are certainly 
the busiest people in the parish. But he is doctor of the body,” 
he added with a thick laugh, “and I of the soul.” 

She fixed her pleading eyes upon the priest. “Yes,” she said, 
“you solace all sorrows.” 

“Ah! don’t talk to me of it, Madame Bovary. This morning 
I had to go to Bas-Diauville for a cow that was ill; they thought 
it was under a spell. All their cows, I don’t know how it is—— 
But pardon me! Longuemarre and Boudet! Bless me! will 
you leave off?” 

And with a bound he ran into the church. 

The boys were just then clustering round the large desk, 
climbing over the precentor’s footstool, opening the missal; 
and others on tiptoe were just about to venture into the con- 
fessional. But the priest suddenly distributed a shower of 
cuffs among them. Seizing them by the collars of their coats, 
he lifted them from the ground, and deposited them on their 
knees on the stones of the choir, firmly, as if he meant plant- 
ing them there. 

“Yes,” said he, when he returned to Emma, unfolding his 
large cotton handkerchief, one corner of which he put be- 
tween his teeth, “farmers are much to be pitied.” 

“Others, too,” she replied. 

“Assuredly. Town-labourers, for example.” 

“Tt is not they——” 

“Pardon! I’ve there known poor mothers of families, vir- 
tuous women, I assure you, real saints, who wanted even bread.” 

“But those,” replied Emma, and the corners of her mouth 
twitched as she spoke, “those, Monsieur le Curé, who have bread 
and have no——” 

“Fire in the winter,” said the priest. 

“Oh, what does that matter?” 

“What! What does it matter? It seems to me that when 
one has firing and food—for, after all——” 


88 MADAME BOVARY 


“My God! my God!” she sighed. 

“Do you feel unwell?” he asked, approaching her anxiously. 
“It is indigestion, no doubt? You must get home, Madame 
Bovary; drink a little tea, that will strengthen you, or else a 
glass of fresh water with a little moist sugar.” 

“Why?” And she looked like one awaking from a dream. 

“Well, you see, you were putting your hand to your fore- 
head. I thought you felt faint.” Then, bethinking himself, 
“But you were asking me something? What was it? I really 
don’t remember.” 

“TP? Nothing! nothing!” repeated Emma. 

And the glance she cast round her slowly fell upon the old 
man in the cassock. They looked at one another face to face 
without speaking. 

“Then, Madame Bovary,” he said at last, “excuse me, but 
duty first, you know; I must look after my good-for-nothings. 
The first communion will soon be upon us, and I fear we shall 
be behind after all. So after Ascension Day I keep them recta 
an extra hour every Wednesday. Poor children! One can- 
not lead them too soon into the path of the Lord, as, more- 
over, he has himself recommended us to do by the mouth of 
his Divine Son. Good health to you, madame; my respects 
to your husband.” 

And he went into the church making a genutexion as soon 
as he reached the door. 

Emma saw him disappear between the double row of forms, 
walking with heavy tread, his head a little bent over his shoul- 
der, and with his two hands half-open behind him. 

Then she turned on her heel all of one piece, like a statue on 
a pivot, and went homewards. But the loud voice of the priest, 
the clear voices of the boys still reached her ears, and went 
on behind her. 

“Are you a Christian?” 

“Yes! lvam->a Christian,” 

“What is a Christian?” 

“He who, being baptized—baptized—baptized-——” 

She went up the steps of the staircase holding on to the 
banisters, and when she was in her room threw herself into an 
arm-chair. 

The whitish light of the window-panes fell with soft undula- 
tions. The furniture in its place seemed to have become more 
immobile, and to lose itself in the shadow as in an ocean of 
darkness. The fire was out, the clock went on ticking, and 
Emma vaguely marvelled at this calm of all things while within 
herself was such tumult. But little Berthe was there, between 





MADAME BOVARY 89 


the window and the work-table, tottering on her knitted shoes, 
and trying to come to her mother to catch hold of the ends of 
her apron-strings. 

“Leave me alone,” said the latter, putting her from her with 
her hand. 

The little girl soon came up closer against her knees, and 
Jeaning on them with her arms, she looked up with her large 
blue eyes, while a small thread of pure saliva dribbled from her 
‘lips on to the silk apron. 

“Leave me alone,” repeated the young woman quite irritably. 
Her face frightened the child, who began to scream. 

“Will you leave me alone?” she said, pushing her with her 
elbow. 

Berthe fell at the foot of the drawers against the brass 
handle, cutting her cheek, which began to bleed, against it. 
Madame Bovary sprang to lift her up, broke the bell-rope, called 
for the servant with all her might, and she was just going to 
curse herself when Charles appeared. It was the dinner-hour; 
he had come home. 

“Look, dear!” said Emma, in a calm voice, “the little one fell 
down while she was playing, and has hurt herself.” 

Charles reassured her; the case was not a serious one, and 
he went for some sticking plaster. 

Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining-room; 
she wished to remain alone to look after the child. Then 
watching her sleep, the little anxiety she felt gradually wore 
off, and she seemed very stupid to herself, and very good to 
have been so worried just now at so little. Berthe, in fact, no 
longer sobbed. Her breathing now imperceptibly raised the 
cotton covering. Big tears lay in the corner of the half-closed 
eyelids, through whose lashes one could see two pale sunken 
pupils; the plaster stuck on her cheek drew the skin obliquely. 

“Tt is very strange,” thought Emma, “how ugly this child is!” 

When at eleven o’clock Charles came back from the chemist’s 
shop, whither he had gone after dinner to return the remainder 
of the sticking-plaster, he found his wife standing by the 
cradle. 

“T assure you it’s nothing,” he said, kissing her on the fore- 
head. “Don’t worry, my poor darling; you will make yourself 
gs 
| He had stayed a long time at the chemist’s. Although he had 
not seemed much moved, Homais, nevertheless, had exerted 
himself to buoy him up, to “keep up his spirits.” Then thev 
had talked of the various dangers that threaten childhood. of 


he carelessness of servants. Madame Homais knew some- 
\ 


90 MADAME BOVARY 


thing of it, having still upon her chest the marks left by a 
basin full of soup that a cook had formerly dropped on her 
pinafore, and her good parents took no end of trouble for her. 
The knives were not sharpened, nor the floors waxed; there 
were iron gratings to the windows and strong bars across the 
fireplace; the little Homais, in spite of their spirit, could not 
stir without some one watching them; at the slightest cold 
their father stuffed them with pectorals; and until they were 
turned four they all, without pity, had to wear wadded head- 
protectors. This, it is true, was a fancy of Madame Homais’; 
her husband was inwardly afflicted at it. Fearing the possible 
consequences of such compression to the intellectual organs, 
he even went so far as to say to her, “Do you want to make 
Caribs or Botocudos of them?” 

Charles, however, had several times tried to interrupt the 
conversation. “I should like to speak to you,” he had whis- 
pered in the clerk’s ear, who went upstairs in front of him. 

“Can he suspect anything?” Léon asked himself. His heart 
beat, and he racked his brain with surmises. 

At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to see 
himself what would be the price at Rouen of a fine daguer- 
reotype. It was a sentimental surprise he intended for his 
wife, a delicate attention—his portrait in a frock-coat. But 
he wanted first to know “how much it would be.” The in- 
quiries would not put Monsieur Léon out, since he went to 
town almost every week. 

Why? Monsieur Homais suspected some “young man’s af- 
fair” at the bottom of it, an intrigue. But he was mistaken. 
Léon was after no love-making. He was sadder than ever, 
as Madame Lefrancois saw from the amount of food he left 
on his plate. To find out more about it she questioned the 
tax-collector. Binet answered roughly that he “wasn’t paid 
by the police.” 

All the same, his companion seemed very strange to him, for 
Léon often threw himself back in his chair, and stretching out 
his arms, complained vaguely of life. 

“Tt’s because you don’t take enough recreation,” said the col- 
lector. 

“What recreation?” 

“Tf I were you I’d have a lathe.” 

“But I don’t know how to turn,” answered the clerk. 

“Ah! that’s true,” said the other, rubbing his chin with an air 
of mingled contempt and satisfaction. 

Léon was weary of loving without any result; moreover, he 
was beginning to feel that depression caused by the ee 


MADAME BOVARY 91 


of the same kind of life, when no interest inspires and no hope 
sustains it. He was so bored with Yonville and the Yonvillers, 
that the sight of certain persons, of certain houses, irritated 
him beyond endurance; and the chemist, good fellow though he 
‘was, was becoming absolutely unbearable to him. Yet the 
‘prospect of a new condition of life frightened as much as it 
seduced him. 

This apprehension soon changed into impatience, and then 
Paris from afar sounded its fanfare of masked balls with the 
laugh of grisettes. As he was to finish reading there, why not 
set out at once? What prevented him? And he began making 
shome-preparations; he arranged his occupations beforehand. 
He furnished in his head an apartment. He would lead an 
artist’s life there! He would take lessons on the guitar! He 
would have a dressing-gown, a Basque cap, blue velvet slippers! 
He even already was admiring two crossed foils over his chim- 
ney-piece, with a death’s-head on the guitar above them. 

_ The difficulty was the consent of his mother; nothing, how- 
ever, seemed more reasonable. Even his employer advised him 
to go to some other chambers where he could advance more 
rapidly. Taking a middle course, then, Léon looked for some 
place as second clerk at Rouen; found none, and at last wrote 
his mother a long letter full of details, in which he set forth the 
reasons for going to live at Paris immediately. She consented. 

He did not hurry. Every day for a month Hivert carried 
boxes, valises, parcels for him from Yonville to Rouen and from 
Rouen to Yonville; and when Léon had packed up his ward- 
robe, had his three arm-chairs restuffed, bought a stock of neck- 
ties, in a word, had made more preparations than for a voyage 
round the world, he put it off from week to week, until he re- 
ceived a second letter from his mother urging him to leave, since 
he wanted to pass his examination before the vacation. 

When the moment for the farewells had come, Madame 
; Homais wept, Justin sobbed; Homais, as a man of nerve, con- 
Jcealed his emotion; he wished to carry his friend’s overcoat 
himself as far as the gate of the notary, who was taking Léon 
‘to Rouen in his carriage. The latter had just time to bid fare- 
well to Monsieur Bovary. . 

When he reached the head of the stairs he stopped, he was 
so out of breath. On his coming in, Madame Bovary rose 
hurriedly. 

“Tt is I again!” said Léon. 

“T was sure of it!” 

She bit her lips, and a rush of blood flowing under her skin 
made her red from the roots of her hair to the top of her 
























¥ MADAME BOVARY 


collar. She remained standing, leaning with her shoulder against 
the wainscot. 

“The doctor is not here?” he went on. 

“He is out.” She repeated, “He is out.” 

Then there was silence. They looked one at the other, and 
their thoughts, confounded in the same agony, clung close to- 
gether like two throbbing breasts. 

“T should like to kiss Berthe,” said Léon. 

Emma went down a few steps and called Félicité. 

He threw one long look around him that took in the walls, 
the brackets, the fireplace, as if to penetrate everything, carry 
away everything. But she returned, and the servant brought 
Berthe, who was swinging a windmill roof downwards at the 
end of a string. Léon kissed her several times on the neck. 

“Good-bye, poor child! good-bye, dear little one! good-bye!” 

And he gave her back to her mother. 

“Take her away,” she said. 

They remained alone—Madame Bovary, her back turned, her 
face pressed against a window-pane; Léon held his cap in his 
hand, knocking it softly against his thigh. 

“Tt is going to rain,” said Emma. 

“T have a cloak,” he answered. 

SAT 4 

She turned round, her chin lowered, her forehead bent 
forward. The light fell on it as on a piece of marble to the 
curve of the eyebrows, without one’s being able to guess what 
Emma was seeing in the horizon or what she was thinking within 
herself. 

“Well, good-bye,” he sighed. 

She raised her head with a quick movement. 

“Yes, good-bye—go!” 

They advanced towards each other; he held out his hand; 
she hesitated. 

“In the English fashion, then,” she said, giving her own 
hand wholly to him, and forcing a laugh. 

Léon felt it between his fingers, and the very essence of all 
his being seemed to pass down into that moist palm. Then he 
opened his hand; their eyes met again, and he disappeared. 

When he reached the market-place, he stopped and hid be- 
hind a pillar to look for the last time at this white house 
with the four green blinds. He thought he saw a shadow 
behind the window in the room; but the curtain, sliding along 
the pole as though no one were touching it, slowly opened its 
long oblique folds, that spread out with a single movement, and 
thus hung straight and motionless as a plaster wall. Léon set 
of running. 


MADAME BOVARY 93 


From afar he saw his employer’s gig in the road, and by it 
a man in a coarse apron holding the horse. Homais and Mon- 
sieur Guillaumin were talking. They were waiting for him. 

“Embrace me,” said the druggist with tears in his eyes. “Here 
is your coat, my good friend. Mind the cold; take care of 
yourself; look after yourself.” 
~ “Come, Léon, jump in,” said the notary. 
| Homais bent over the splash-board, and in a voice broken by 
‘sobs uttered these three sad words— 
| “A pleasant journey!” 

“Good-night,” said Monsieur Guillaumin. “Give him his head.” 

They set out, and Homais went back. 

* * * * * * * 

Madame Bovary had opened her window overlooking the 
garden and watched the clouds. They were gathering round 
the sunset on the side of Rouen, and swiftly rolled back their 
black columns, behind which the great rays of the sun looked 
out like the golden arrows of a suspended trophy, while the rest 
of the empty heavens was white as porcelain. But a gust of 
wind bowed the poplars, and suddenly the rain fell; it pattered 
against the green leaves. Then the sun reappeared, the hens 
clucked, sparrows shook their wings in the damp thickets, and 
the pools of water on the gravel as they flowed away carried 
off the pink flowers of an acacia. 

“Ah! how far off he must be already!” she thought. 

Monsieur Homais, as usual, came at half-past six during 
dinner. 

“Well,” said he, “so we’ve sent off our young friend!” 

“So it seems,” replied the doctor. Then turning on his chair: 
“Any news at home?” 

“Nothing much. Only my wife was a little moved this 
afternoon. You know women—a nothing upsets them, espes 
cially my wife. And we should be wrong to object to that, 
since their nervous organisation is much more malleable than 
ours.” 

“Poor Léon!” said Charles. “How will he live at Paris? 
Will he get used to it?” 

Madame Bovary sighed. 

“Get along!” said the chemist, smacking his lips. “The outings 
at restaurants, the masked balls, the champagne—all that’ll be 
jolly enough, I assure you.” 

“T don’t think he’ll go wrong,” objected Bovary. 

“Nor do I,” said Monsieur Homais quickly; “although he’ll 
nave to do like the rest for fear of passing for a Jesuit. And 
you don’t know what a life those dogs lead in the Latin quartez 


94 MADAME BOVARY 


with actresses. Besides, students are thought a great deal of at 
Paris. Provided they have a few accomplishments, they are 
received in the best society; there are even ladies of the Fau- 
bourg Saint-Germain who fall in love with them, which sub- 
sequently furnishes them opportunities for making very good 
matches.” 

“But,” said the doctor, “IT fear for him that down there——” 

“You are right,” interrupted the chemist; “that is the reverse 
of the medal. And one is constantly obliged to keep one’s 
hand in one’s pocket there. Thus, we will suppose you are in 
a public garden. An individual presents himself, well dressed, 
even wearing an order, and whom one would take for a diplo- 
matist. He approaches you, he insinuates himself; offers you 
a pinch of snuff, or picks up your hat. Then you become more 
intimate; he takes you to a café, invites you to his country- 
house, introduces you, between two drinks, to all sorts of people; 
and three-fourths of the time it’s only to plunder your watch or 
lead you into some pernicious step.” 

“That is true,” said Charles; “but I was thinking specially of 
illnesses—of typhoid fever, for example, that attacks students 
from the provinces.” 

Emma shuddered. 

“Because of the change of regimen,” continued the chemist, 
“and of the perturbation that results therefrom in the whole 
system. And then the water at Paris, don’t you know! The 
dishes at restaurants, all the spiced food, end by heating the 
blood, and are not worth, whatever people may say of them, a 
good soup. For my own part, I have always preferred plain 
living; it is more healthy. So when I was studying pharmacy 
at Rouen, I boarded in a boarding-house; I dined with the pro- 
fessors.” 

And thus he went on, expounding his opinions generally and 
his personal likings, until Justin came to fetch him for a mulled 
egg that was wanted. 

“Not a moment’s peace!” he cried; “always at it! I can’t 
go out for a minute! Like a plough-horse, I have always to 
be moiling and toiling. What drudgery!” Then, when he was | 
at the door, “By the way, do you know the news?” 

“What news?” 

“That it is very likely,” Homais went on, raising his eye- 
brows and assuming one of his most serious expressions, “that 
the agricultural meeting of the Seine-Inférieure will be held 
this year at Yonville-l’Abbaye. The rumour, at all events, 1s 
going the round. This morning the paper alluded to it. If 
would be of the utmost importance for our district. But we'll 





MADAME BOVARY 





da. 


talk it over later on. I can see, thank you; Justin has the 
lantern.” 


Vil. 


THE next day was a dreary one for Emma. Every thing 

seemed to her enveloped in a black atmosphere floating 
confusedly over the exterior of things, and sorrow was en- 
gulfed within her soul with soft shrieks such as the winter 
wind makes in ruined castles. It was that reverie which we give 
to things that will not return, the lassitude that seizes you after 
everything was done; that pain, in fine, that the interruption 
of every wonted movement, the sudden cessation of any pro- 
longed vibration, brings on. 

As on the return from Vaubyessard, when the quadrilles were 
running in her head, she was full of a gloomy melancholy, of 
a numb despair. Léon reappeared, taller, handsomer, more 
charming, more vague. Though separated from her, he had not 
left her; he was there, and the walls of the house seemed to 
hold his shadow. She cou!d not detach her eyes from the carpet 


where he had walked, from those empty chairs where he had sat. 


| 
| 


, 
1 
' 


The river still flowed on, and slowly drove its ripples along the 
slippery banks. They had often walked there to the murmur 


of the waves over the moss-covered pebbles. How bright the 


sun had been! What happy afternoons they had seen alone 
in the shade at the end of the garden! He read aloud, bare- 


headed, sitting on a footstoo! of dry sticks; the fresh wind of 


the meadow set trembling the leaves of the book and the nas- 


_turtiums of the arbour. Ah! he was gone, the only charm of 


| 
: 





her life, the only possible hope of joy. Why had she not 
seized this happiness when it came to her? Why not have kept 
hold of it with both hands, with both knees, when it was about 


to flee from her? And she cursed herself for not having 


loved Léon. She thirsted for his lips. The wish took possession 


of her to run after and rejoin him, throw herself into his 
arms and say to him, “It is I; I am yours.” But Emma re- 
coiled beforehand at the difficulties of the enterprise, and her 
desires, increased by regret, became only the more acute. 
Henceforth the memory of Léon was the centre of her 
boredom; it burnt there more brightly than the fire travellers 
have left on the snow of a Russian steppe. She sprang towards 
him, she pressed against him, she stirred carefully the dying 
embers, sought all around her anything that could revive it; 
and the most distant reminiscences, like the most immediate 





MADAME BOVARY 


occasions, what she experienced as well as what she imagined, 
her voluptuous desires that were unsatisfied, her projects of 
jlappiness\that crackled in the wind like dead boughs, her sterile 
virtue, her-lost hopes, the domestic téte-a-téte,—she gathered it 
all up, took everything, and made it all serve as fuel for her 
melancholy. \ 

The flames, Itqwever, subsided, either because the supply had 
exhausted itself, or because it had been piled up too much. 
Love, little by little; was quelled by absence; regret stifled 
beneath habit; and this incendiary light that had empurpled her 
pale sky was overspread and faded by degrees. In the supine- 
ness of her conscience she even took her repugnance towards 
her husband for aspirations towards her lover, the burning 
of hate for the warmth of tenderness; but as the tempest still 
raged, and as passion burnt itself down to the very cinders, and 
no help came, no sun rose, there was night on all sides, and 
she was lost in the terrible cold that pierced her. 

Then the evil days of Tostes began again. She thought 
herself now far more unhappy; for she had the experience of 
grief, with the certainty that it would not end. 

A woman who had laid on herself such sacrifices could 
well allow herself certain whims. She bought a gothic prie- 
Dieu, and in a month spent fourteen francs on lemons for 
polishing her nails; she wrote to Rouen for a blue cashmere 
gown; she chose one of Lheureux’s finest scarves, and wore 
it knotted round her waist over her dressing-gown; and, with 
closed blinds and a book in her hand, she lay stretched out 
on a couch in this garb. 

She often changed her coiffure; she did her hair d@ la Chinoise, 
in flowing curls, in plaited coils; she parted it on one side and 
rolled it under like a man’s. 

She wanted to learn Italian; she bought dictionaries, a 
grammar, and a supply of white paper. She tried serious 
reading, history, and philosophy. Sometimes in the night Charles 
woke up with a start, thinking he was being called to a pa- 
tient. “I’m coming,’ he stammered; and it was the noise of 
a match Emma had struck to relight the lamp. But her read-— 
ing fared like her pieces of embroidery, all of which, only just 


' begun, filled her cupboard; she took it up, left it, passed on~ 


to other books. : 
She had attacks in which she could easily have been driven 
to commit any folly. She maintained one day, in opposition to— 


‘her hubsand, that she could drink off a large glass of brandy, 


and, as Charles was stupid enougn to dare her to, she swallowed 
the brandy to the last drop. 


MADAME BOVARY 97 


In spite of her vapourish airs (as the housewives of Yon- 
ville called them), Emma, all the same, never seemed gay, 
and usually she had at the corners of her mouth that im- 
mobile contraction that puckers the faces of Gld maids, and 
those of men whose ambition has failed. She was pale all 
over, white as a sheet; the: skin of her nose was drawn at 
the nostrils, her eyes looked at you vaguely. After dis- 
covering three grey hairs on her temples, she talked much 
of her old age. 

She often fainted. One day she even spat blood, and, as 
Charles fussed round her showing his anxiety— 

“Bah!” she answered, “what does it matter?” 

Charles fled to his study and wept there, both his elbows 
on the table, sitting in an arm-chair at his bureau under the 
phrenological head. 

Then he wrote to his mother to beg her to come, and they 
had many long consultations together on the subject of Emma. 

What should they decide? What was to be done since she 
rejected all medical treatment? 

“Do you know what your wife wants?” replied Madame 
Bovary senior. “She wants to be forced to occupy herself 
with some manual work. If she were obliged, like so many 
others, to earn her living, she wouldn’t have these vapours, » 


that come to her from a lot of ideas she stuffs into her head, © 


and from the idleness in which she lives.” 

“Yet she is always busy,” said Charles. 

“Ah! always busy at what? Reading novels, bad books, 
works against religion, and in which they mock at priests in 
speeches taken from Voltaire. But all that leads you far 
astray, my poor child. Any one who has no religion always 
ends by turning out badly.” 

So it was decided to stop Emma reading novels. The enter- 
prise did not seem easy. The good lady undertook it. She 
was, when she passed through Rouen, to go herself to the lend- 
ing-library and represent that Emma had discontinued her 
subscription. Would théy not have a right to apply to the 
police if the librarian persisted all the same in his poisonous 
trade? 

The farewells of mother and daughter-in-law were cold. 
During the three weeks that they had been together they had 
not exchanged half-a-dozen words apart from the inquiries 
and phrases when they met at table and in the evening before 
going to bed. 

Madame Bovary left on a Wednesday, the market-day at 
Yonville. 


98 MADAME BOVARY 


The Place since morning had been blocked by a row of carts, 
which, on end and their shafts in the air, spread all along the 
line of houses from the church to the inn. On the other side 
there were canvas booths, where cotton checks, blankets, and 
woolen stockings were sold, together with harness for horses, 
and packets of blue ribbon, whose ends fluttered in the wind. 
The coarse hardware was spread out on the ground between 
pyramids of eggs and hampers of cheeses, from which sticky 
straw stuck out. Near the corn-machines clucking hens passed 
their necks through the bars of flat cages.. The people, crowding 
in the same place and unwilling to move thence, sometimes 
threatened to smash the shop-front of the chemist. On Wednes- 
days his shop was never empty, and the people pushed in less 
to buy drugs than for consultations, so great was Homais’ 
reputation in the neighbouring villages. His robust aplomb 
had fascinated the rustics. They considered him a greater 
doctor than all the doctors. 

Emma was leaning out at the window; she was often there. 
The window in the provinces replaces the theatre and the 
promenade, and she amused herself with watching the crowd 
of boors, when she saw a gentleman in a green velvet coat. 
He had on yellow gloves, although he wore heavy gaiters; he 
was coming towards the doctor’s house, followed by a peasant 
walking with bert head and quite a thoughtful air. 

“Can I see the doctor?” he asked Justin, who was talking 
on the doorsteps with Félicité, and, taking him for a servant 
of the house. “Tell him that Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger of 
La Huchette is here.” 

It was not from territorial vanity that the new arrival added 
“of La Huchette” to his name, but to make himself the better 
known. La Huchette, in fact, was an estate near Yonville, 
where he had just bought the chateau and two farms that he 
cultivated himself, without, however, troubling very much about 
them. He lived as a bachelor, and was supposed to have “at 
least fifteen thousand francs a year.” | 

Charles came into the room. Monsieur Boulanger introduced 
his man, who wanted to be bled because he felt “a tingling all 
over.” 

“That'll pu>~> me,” he urged as an objection to all reasoning. 

So Bovary or. °1 a bandage and a basin, and asked Justin 
to hold it. Then a--ressing the countryman, already pale— 

“Don’t be afraid, my lad.” 

“No, no, sir,’ said the other; “get on.” 

And with an air of bravado he held out his great arm. At 
the prick of the lancet the blood spurted out, splashing against 
the looking-glass. 


MADAME BOVARY 99 


“Hold the basin nearer,” exclaimed Charles. 

“Lor!” said the peasant, “one would swear it was a little 
fountain flowing. How red my blood is! That’s a good sign, 
isn’t it?” 

“Sometimes,” answered the doctor, “one feels nothing at 
first, and then syncope sets in, and more especially with people 
of strong constitution like this man.” 

At these words the rustic let go the lancet-case he was twist- 
ing between his fingers. A shudder of his shoulders made the 
chair-back creak. His hat fell off. 

“IT thought as much,” said Bovary, pressing his finger on the 
vein. 

The basin was beginning to tremble in Justin’s hands; his 
knees shook, he turned pale. 

“Emma! Emma!” called Charles. 

With one bound she came down the staircase. 

“Some vinegar,” he cried. “O dear! two at once!” 

And in his emotion he could hardly put on the compress. 

“Tt is nothing,” said Monsieur Boulanger quietly, taking 
Justin in his arms. He seated him on the table with his back 
resting against the wall. 

Madame Bovary began taking off his cravat. The strings 
of his shirt had got intc a knot, and she was for some minutes 
mcoving her light fingers about the young fellow’s neck. Then 
she poured some vinegar on her cambric handkerchief; she 
moistened his temples with little dabs, and then blew upon 
them softly. The ploughman revived, but Justin’s syncope still 
lasted, and his eyeballs disappeared in their pale sclerotic like 
blue flowers in milk. 

“We must hide this from him,” said Charles. 

Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table. 
With the movement she made in bending down, her dress (it 
was a summer dress with four flounces, yellow, long in the 
waist and wide in the skirt) spread out around her on the flags 
of the room; and as Emma, stooping, staggered a little as she 
stretched out her arms, the stuff here and there gave with the 
inflections of her bust. Then she went to fetch a bottle of 
water, and she was melting some pieces of sugar when the 
chemist arrived. The servant had been to fetch him in the 
tumult. Seeing his pupil with his eyes open he drew a long 
breath; then going round him he looked at him from head ta 
foot. 

“Fool!” he said, “really a little fool! A fool in four letters! 
A phlebotomy’s a big affair, isn’t it! And a fellow who isn’t 
afraid of anything; a kind of squirrel, just as he is who climbs 


100 MADAME BOVARY 


to vertiginous heights to shake down nuts. Oh, yes! you just 
talk to me, boast about myself! MHere’s a fine fitness for prac- 
tising pharmacy later on; for under serious circumstances you 
may be called before the tribunals in order to enlighten the 
minds of the magistrates, and you would have to keep your head 
then, to reason, show yourself a man, or else pass for an im- 
becile.” 

Justin did not answer. The chemist went on— 

“Who asked you to come? You are always pestering the 
doctor and madame. On Wednesday, moreover, your presence 
is indispensable to me. There are now twenty people in the 
shop. I left everything because of the interest I take in you. 
Come, get along! Sharp! Wait for me, and keep an eye on 
the jars.” 

When Justin, who was rearranging his dress, had gone, they 
talked for a little while about fainting-fits. Madame Bovary 
had never fainted. 

“That is extraordinary for a lady,” said Monsieur Boulanger; 
“but some people are very susceptible. Thus in a duel, I have 
seen a second lose consciousness at the mere sound of the 
loading of pistols.” 

“For my part,” said the chemist, “the sight of other people’s 
blood doesn’t affect me at all, but the mere thought of my own 
flowing would make me faint if I reflected upon it too much.” 

Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising 
him to calm himself, since his fancy was over. 

“Tt procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance,” 
he added, and he looked at Emma as she said this. Then he 
put three francs on the corner of the table, bowed negligently, 
and went out. 

He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way 
back to La Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, 
walking under the poplars, slackening his pace now and then 
as one who reflects. 

“She is very pretty,” he said to himself; “she is very pretty, 
this doctor’s wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a 
figure like a Parisienne’s. Where the devil does she come from? 
Wherever did this fat fellow pick her up?” 

Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of 
brutal temperament and intelligent perspicacity, having, more- 
over, had much to do with women, and knowing them well. 
This one had seemed pretty to him; so he was thinking about 
her and her husband. 

“I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. 
He has dirty nails, and hasn’t shave:! for three days. While 


MADAME BOVARY 10 


he is trotting after his patients, she sits there botching socks. 
And she gets bored! She would like to live in town and dance 


polkas every evening. Poor little woman! She is gaping after ” 


love like a-carp after water on a kitchen-table. With three 
words of gallantry she’d adore one, I’m sure of it. She’d be 
tender, charming. Yes; but how get rid of her afterwards?” 

Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the distance 
made him by contrast think of his mistress. She was an actress 
at Rouen, whom he kept; and when he had pondered over this 
image, with which, even in remembrance, he was satiated— 

“Ah! Madame Bovary,” he thought, “is much prettier, espe- 
cially fresher. Virginie is decidedly beginning to grow fat. 
She is so finikin with her pleasures; and, besides, she has a 
‘mania for prawns.” 

The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only heard 
the regular beating of the grass striking against his boots, 
with the cry of the grasshopper hidden at a distance among 
the oats. He again saw Emma in her room, dressed as he had 
seen her, and he undressed her. 
~ “Oh, I will have her,” he cried, striking a blow with his 
stick at a clod in front of him. And he at once began to con- 
sider the political part of the enterprise. He asked himself— 

“Where shall we meet? By what means? We shall always 
be having the brat on our hands, and the servant, the neigh- 
bours, the husband, all sorts of worries. Pshaw! one would 
lose too much time over it.” 

Then he resumed, “She really has eyes that pierce one’s 
heart like a gimlet. And that pale complexion! I adore pale 
women !” 

When he reached the top of the Argueil hills he had made 
up his mind. “It’s only finding the opportunities. Well, I 
will call in now and then. I'll send them venison, poultry; 
T'll have myself bled, if need be. We shall become friends; 
I'll invite them to my place. By Jove!” added he, “there’s 
the agricultural show coming on. She’ll be there. I shall 
see her. We'll begin boldly, for that’s the surest way.” 





Vill 


At last it came, the famous agricultural show. On the 

morning of the solemnity all the inhabitants at their 
doors were chatting over the preparations. The pediment of 
the townhall had been hung with garlands of ivy: a tent had 


102 MADAME BOVARY 


been erected in a meadow for the banquet; and in the middle 
of the Place, in front of the church, a kind of bombarde was 
to announce the arrival of the prefect and the names of the 
successful farmers who had obtained prizes. The National 
-Guard of Buchy (there was none at Yonville) had come to 
join the corps of firemen, of whom Binet was captain. On that 
day he wore a collar even higher than usual; and, tightly 
buttoned in his tunic, his figure was so stiff and motionless that 
the whole vital portion of his person seemed to have descended 
into his legs, which rose in a cadence of set steps with a 
single movement. As there was some rivalry between the 
tax-collector and the colonel, both, to show off their talents, 
drilled their men separately. One saw the red epaulettes and 
the black breastplates pass and repass alternately; there was 
no end to it, and it constantly began again. There had never 
been such a display of pomp. Several citizens had washed down 
their houses the evening before; tricoloured flags hung from 
half-open windows; all the public houses were full; and in 
the lovely weather the starched caps, the golden crosses, and 
the coloured neckerchiefs seemed whiter than snow, shone in 
the sun, and relieved with their motley colours the sombre 
monotony of the frock-coats and blue smocks. The neighbour- 
ing farmers’ wives, when they got off their horses, pulled out 
a long pin that fastened round them their dresses, turned up 
for fear of mud; and the husbands, on the contrary, in order 
to save their hats, kept their handkerchiefs round them, held- 
ing one corner between their teeth. 

The crowd came into the main street from both ends of 
the village. People poured in from the lanes, the alleys, the 
houses; and from time to time one heard knockers banging 
against doors closing behind women with their gloves, who 
were going out to see the féte. What was most admired 
were two long lamp-stands covered with lanterns, that flanked 
a platform on which the authorities were to sit. Besides this 
there were against the four columns of the townhall four kinds 
of poles, each bearing a small standard of greenish cloth, 
embellished with inscriptions in gold letters. On one was 
written, “To Commerce;” on the other, “To Agriculture ;” 
on the third, “To Industry;” and on the fourth, “To the Fine 
Arts.” 

But the jubilation that brightened all faces seemed to darken 
that of Madame Lafrancois, the innkeeper. Standing on her 
kitchen-steps she muttered to herself, “What rubbish! what 
rubbish! With their canvas booth! Do they think the pre- 
fect will be glad to dine down there under a tent like a gipsy? 


MADAME BOVARY 103 


They call all this fussing doing good to the place! Then it 
wasn’t worth while sending to Neufchatel for the keeper of a 
cookshop! And for whom? For cowherds! tatterdemalions!” 

The druggist was passing. He had on a frock-coat, nan- 
keen trousers, beaver shoes, and, for a wonder, a hat with a 
low crown. 

“Your servant! Excuse me, I am in a hurry.” And as the 
fat widow asked where he was going—— 

“It seems odd to you, doesn’t it, I who am always more 
cooped up in my laboratory than the man’s rat in his cheese.” 

“What cheese?” asked the landlady. 

“Oh, nothing! nothing!” Homais continued. “I merely wished 
to convey to you, Madame Lefrangois, that I usually live at 
home like a recluse. To-day, however, considering the circum- 
stances, it is necessary . 

“Oh, you’re going down there!” she said contemptuously. 

“Yes, I am going,” replied the druggist, astonished. “Am I 
not a member of the consulting commission ?” 

Mere Lefrancois looked at him for a few moments, and 
ended by saying with a smile— 

“That’s another pair of shoes! But what does agriculture 
matter to you? Do you understand anything about it?” 

“Certainly I understand it, since I am a druggist,—that is to 
say, a chemist. And the object of chemistry, Madame Lefran- 
cois, being the knowledge of the reciprocal and molecular action 
of all natural bodies, it follows that agriculture is comprised 
within its domain. And, in fact, the composition of the manure, 
the fermentation of liquids, the analyses of gases, and the in- 
fluence of miasmata, what, I ask you, is all this, if it isn’t 
chemistry, pure and simple?’ 

The landlady did not answer. Homais went on— 

“Do you think that to be an agriculturist it is necessary to 
have tilled the earth or fattened fowls oneself? It is necessary 
rather to know the composition of the substances in question— © 
the geological strata, the atmospheric actions, the quality of 
the soil, the minerals, the waters, the density of the different 
bodies, their capillarity, and what not. And one must be 
master of all the principles of hygiene in order to direct, criti- 
cise the construction of buildings, the feeding of animals, the 
diet of domestics. And, moreover, Madame Lefrancois, one 
must know botany, be able to distinguish between plants, you 
understand, which are the wholesome and those that are dele- 
terious, which are unproductive and which nutritive, if it is 
well to pull them up here and re-sow them there, to propagate 
some, destroy others; in brief, one must keep pace with science 





104 MADAME BOVARY 


by means of pamphlets and public papers, be always on the 
alert to find out improvements.” 

The landlady never took her eyes off the “Café Francais” 
and the chemist went on— 

“Would to God our agriculturists were chemists, or that at 
least they would pay more attention to the counsels of science. 
Thus lately I myself wrote a considerable tract, a memoir of 
over seventy-two pages, entitled, ‘Cider, its Manufacture and its 
Effects, together with some New Reflections on this Subject,’ 
that I sent to the Agricultural Society of Rouen, and which 
even procured me the honour of being received among its 
members—Section, Agriculture; Class, Pomological. Well, if 
my work had been given to the public——”’ But the druggist 
stopped, Madame Lefrancois seemed so preoccupied. 

“Just look at them!’ she said. “It’s past comprehension! 
Such a cookshop as that!” And with a shrug of the shoulders 
that stretched out over her breast the stitches of her knitted 
bodice, she pointed with both hands at her rival’s inn, whence 
songs were heard issuing. “Well, it won’t last long,” she added, 
“Tt’ll be over before a week.” 

Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down three 
steps and whispered in his ear— 

“What! you didn’t know it? There’s be an execution in 
next week. It’s Lheureux who is selling him up; he has killed 
him with bills.” 

“What a terrible catastrophe!” cried the druggist, who always 
found expressions in harmony with all imaginable circum- 
stances. 

Then the landlady began telling him this story, that she 
had heard from Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin’s servant, and 
although she detested Tellier, she blamed Lheureux. He was “a 
wheedler, a sneak.” 

“There!” she said. “Look at him! he is in the market; he 
is bowing to Madame Bovary, who’s got on a green bonnet. 
Why, she’s taking Monsieur Boulanger’s arm.” 

“Madame Bovary!” exclaimed Homais. “I must go at once 
and pay her my respects. Perhaps she’s be very glad to have 
a seat in the enclosure under the peristyle.” And, without 
heeding Madame Lefrancois, who was calling him back to tell 
him more about it, the druggist walked off rapidly with a 
smile on his lips, with straight knees, bowing copiously to 
right and left, and taking up much room with the large tails 
of his frock-coat that fluttered behind him in the wind. 

Rodolphe having caught sight of him from afar, hurried on, 
but Madame Bovary lost her breath; so he walked more slowly, 
ond, smiling at her, said i9 9 ronch -tone— 


MADAME BOVARY 105 


“Tt’s only to get away from that fat fellow, you know, the 
druggist.” She pressed his elbow. 

“What's the meaning of that?” he asked himself. And he 
looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. 

Her profile was so calm that one could guess nothing from 
it. It stood out in the light from the oval of her bonnet, with 
pale ribbons on it like the leaves of weeds. Her eyes with 
their long curved lashes looked straight before her, and though 
wide open, they seemed slightly puckered by the cheek-bones, 
because of the blood pulsing gently under the delicate skin. 
A pink line ran along the partition between her nostrils. Her 
head was bent upon her shoulder, and the pearl tips of her 
white teeth were seen between her lips. 

“Is she making fun of me?” thought Rodolphe. 

Emma’s gesture, however, had only been meant for a warn- 
ing; for Monsieur Lheureux was accompanying them, and 
spoke now and again as if to enter into the conversation. 

“What a superb day! Everybody is out! The wind is east!” 

And neither Madame Bovary nor Rodolphe answered him, 
whilst at the slightest movement made by them he drew near, 
saying, “I beg your pardon!” and raised his hat. 

When they reached the farrier’s house, instead of following 
the road up to the fence, Rodolphe suddenly turned down a 
path, drawing with him Madame Bovary. He called out— 

“Good evening, Monsieur lLheureux! See you again 
presently.” 

“How you got rid of him!” she said, laughing. 

“Why,” he went on, “allow oneself to be intruded upon by 
others? And as to-day I have the happiness of being with 
you ” 

Emma blushed. He did not finish his sentence. Then he 
talked of the fine weather and of the pleasure of walking on 
the grass. A few daisies had sprung up again. 

“Here are some pretty Easter daisies,” he said, “and enough 
of them to furnish oracles to all the amorous maids in the 
place.” He added, “Shall I pick some? What do you think?” 

“Are you in love?” she asked, coughing a little. 

“H’m, h’m! who knows?” answered Rodolphe. 

The meadow began to fill, and the housewives hustled you 
with their great umbrellas, their baskets, and their babies. One 
had often to get out of the way of a long file of country folk, 
servant-maids with blue stockings, flat shoes, silver rings, and 
who smelt of milk when one passed close to them. They 
walked along holding one another by the hand, and thus they 
spread over the whole field from the row of open trees to the 





106 MADAME BOVARY 


banquet tent. But this was the examination time, and the 
farmers one after the other entered a kind of enclosure formed 
by a long cord supported on sticks. 

The beasts were there, their noses towards the cord, and 
making a confused line with their unequal rumps. Drowsy 
pigs were burrowing in the earth with their snouts, calves were 
bleating, lambs baaing; the cows, on knees folded in, were 
stretching their bellies on the grass, slowly chewing the cud, 
and blinking their heavy eyelids at the gnats that buzzed round 
them. Ploughmen with bare arms were holding by the halter 
prancing stallions that neighed with dilated nostrils looking 
towards the mares. These stood quietly, stretching out their 
heads and flowing manes, while their foals rested in their 
shadow, or now and then came and sucked them. And above 
the long undulation of these crowded animals one saw some 
white mane rising in the wind like a wave, or some sharp horns 
sticking out, and the heads of men running about. Apart, 
outside the enclosure, a hundred paces off, was a large black 
bull, muzzled, with an iron ring in its nostrils, and who moved 
no more than if he had been in bronze. A child in rags 
was holding him by a rope. 

Between the two lines the committee-men were walking with 
heavy steps, examining each animal, then consulting one an- 
other in a low voice. One who seemed of more importance 
now and then took notes in a book as he walked along. This 
was the president of the jury, Monsieur Derozerays de lia 
Panville. As soon as he recognised Rodolphe he came for- 
ward quickly, and smiling amiably, said— 

“What! Monsieur Boulanger, you are deserting us?” 

Rodolphe protested that he was just coming. But when the 
president had disappeared-—— 

“Ma foi!” said he, “I shall not go. Your company is better 
than his.” 

And while poking fun at the show, Rodolphe, to move about 
more easily, showed the gendarme his blue card, and even 
stopped now and then in front of some fine beast, which Madame 
Bovary did not at all admire. He noticed this, and began jeer- 
ing at the Yonville ladies and their dresses; then he apologised 
for the negligence of his own. He had that incongruity of 
common and elegant in which the habitually vulgar think they 
see the revelation of an eccentric existence, of the perturba- 
tions of sentiment, the tyrannies of art, and always a certain 
contempt for social conventions, that seduces or exasperates 
them. Thus his cambric shirt with plaited cuffs was blown 
out by the wind in the opening of his waistcoat of grey tick- 


MADAME BOVARY 107 


ing, and his broad-striped trousers disclosed at the ankle nan- 
keen boots with patent leather gaiters. These were so polished 
that they reflected the grass. He trampled on horse’s dung 
with them, one hand in the pocket of his jacket and his straw 
hat on one side. 

“Besides,” added he, “when one lives in the country” 

“It’s waste of time,” said Emma. 

“That is true,” replied Rodolphe. “To think that not one 
of these people is capable of understanding even the cut of a 
coat!” 

Then they talked about provincial mediocrity, of the lives 
it crushed, the illusions lost there. 

“And I too,” said Rodolphe, “am drifting into depression.” 

“You!” she said in astonishment; “I thought you very light. 
hearted.” 

“Ah! yes. I seem so, because in the midst of the world I 
know how to wear the mask of a scoffer upon my face; and 
yet, how many a time at the sight of a cemetery by moonlight 
have I not asked myself whether it were not better to join 
those sleeping there!” 

“Oh! and your friends?” she said. “You do not think of 
them.” 

“My friends! What friends? Have I any? Who cares 
for me?” And he accompanied the last words with a kind 
of whistling of the lips. 

But they were obliged to separate from each other because of 
a great pile of chairs that a man was carrying behind them. 
He was so overladen with them that one could only see the 
tips of his wooden shoes and the ends of his two outstretched 
arms. It was Lestiboudois, the gravedigger, who was carrying 
the church chairs about amongst the people. Alive to all that 
concerned his interests, he had hit upon this means of turning 
the show to account; and his idea was succeeding, for he no 
longer knew which way to turn. In fact, the villagers, who 
were hot, quarrelled for these seats, whose straw. smelt of 
incense, and they leant against the thick backs, stained with 
the wax of candles, with a certain veneration. 

Madame Bovary again took Rodolphe’s arm; he went on as 
if speaking to himself— 

“Yes, I have missed so many things. Always alone! Ah! 
if I had some aim in life, if I had met some love, if I had 
found some one! Oh, how I would have spent all the energy 
of which I am capable, surmounted everything, overcome 
everything !” 

“Yet it seems to me,” said Emma, “that you are not to be 
Ditied.” 


108 MADAME BOVARY 


“Ah! you think so?” said Rodolphe. 

“For, after all,” she went on, “you are free—— 
tated, ‘“rich——” 

“Do not mock me,” he replied. 

And she protested that she was not mocking him, when the 
report of a cannon resounded. Immediately all began hustling 
one another pell-mell towards the village. 

It was a false alarm. The prefect seemed not to be coming, 
and the members of the jury felt much embarrassed, not know- 
ing if they ought to begin the meeting or still wait. 

At last at the end of the Place a large hired landau ap- 
peared, drawn by two thin horses, whom a coachman in a 
white hat was whipping lustily. Binet had only just time to 
shout, “Present arms!” and the colonel to imitate him. All 
ran towards the enclosure; every one pushed forward. A few 
even forgot their collars; but the equipage of the prefect seemed 
to anticipate the crowd, and the two yoked jades, trapesing 
in their harness, came up at a little trot in front of the peri- 
style of the townhall at the very moment when the National 
Guard and firemen deployed, beating drums and marking time. 

“Present!” shouted Binet. 

“Halt!” shouted the colonel. “Left about, march.” 

And after presenting arms, during which the clang of the 
band, letting loose, rang out like a brass kettle rolling down- 
stairs, all the guns were lowered. Then was seen stepping 
down from the carriage a gentleman in a short coat with silver 
braiding, with bald brow, and wearing a tuft of hair at the 
back of his head, of a sallow complexion and the most benign 
appearance. His eyes, very large and covered by heavy Kids, 
were half-closed to look at the crowd, while at the same time 
he raised his sharp nose, and forced a smile upon his sunken 
mouth. He recognised the mayor by his scarf, and explained to 
him that the prefect was not able to come. He himself was 
a councillor at the prefecture; then he added a few apologies. 
Monsieur Tuvache answered them with compliments; the 
other confessed himself nervous; and they remained thus, face 
to face, their foreheads almost touching, with the members of 
the jury all round, the municipal council, the notable person- 
ages, the National Guard and the crowd. The councillor press- 
ing his little cocked hat to his breast repeated his bows, while 
Tuvache, bent like a bow, also smiled, stammered, tried to 
say something, protested his devotion to the monarchy and 
the honour that was being done to Yonville. 

Hippolyte, the groom from the inn, took the head of the 
horses from the coachman, and, limping along with his club- 


” she hesi- 


MADAME BOVARY 109 


foot, led them to the door of the “Lion d’Or’”’ where a number 
of peasants collected to look at the carriage. The drum 
beat, the howitzer thundered, and the gentlemen one by one 
mounted the platform, where they sat down in red utrecht 
velvet arm-chairs that had been lent by Madame Tuvache. 

All these people looked alike. Their fair flabby faces, some- 
what tanned by the sun, were the colour of sweet cider, and 
their puffy whiskers emerged from stiff collars, kept up by 
white cravats with broad bows. All the waistcoats were of 
velvet, double-breasted; all the watches had, at the end of a2 
long ribbon, an oval cornelian seal; every one rested his two 
hands on his thighs, carefully stretching the stride of their 
trousers, whose unspunged glossy cloth shone more brilliantly 
than the leather of his heavy boots. 

The ladies of the company stood at the back under the vesti- 
bule between the pillars, while the common herd was opposite, 
standing up or sitting on chairs. As a matter of fact, Lesti- 
boudois had brought thither all those that he had moved 
from the field, and he even kept running back every minute 
to fetch others from the church. He caused such confusion 
with this piece of business that one had great difficulty in 
getting to the small steps of the platform. 

“T think,” said Monsieur Lheureux to the chemist, who was 
passing to his place, “that they ought to have put up two Vene- 
tian masts with something rather severe and rich for orna- 
ments; it would have been a very pretty effect.” 

“To be sure,” replied Homais; “but what can you expect? 
The mayor took everything on his own shoulders. He hasn’t 
much taste. Poor Tuvache! and he is even completely desti- 
tute of what is called the genius of art.” 

Rodolphe, meanwhile, with Madame Bovary, had gone up to 
the first floor of the townhall, to the “council-room,” and, as 


_~- 


it was empty, he declared that they could enjoy the sight there © 


more comfortably. He fetched three stools from the round 
table under the bust of the monarch, and having carried them 
to one of the windows, they sat down by each other. 

There was commotion on the platform, long whisperings, 
much parleying. At last the councillor got up. They knew 
now that his name was Lieuvain, and in the crowd the name 
was passed from one to the other. After he had collated a 
few pages, and bent over them to see better, he began— 

“Gentlemen! May I be permitted first of all (before ad- 
dressing you on the object of our meeting to-day, and this 
sentiment will, I am sure, be shared by you all), may I be 
permitted, I say, to pay a tribute to the higher administration, 


110 MADAME BOVARY 


to the government, to the monarch, gentlemen, our sovereign, 
to that beloved king, to whom no branch of public or private 
prosperity is a matter of indifference, and who directs with a 
hand at once so firm and wise the chariot of the state amid 
the incessant perils of a stormy sea, knowing, moreover, how to 
make peace respected as well as war, industry, commerce, agri- 
culture, and the fine arts.” 

“IT ought,” said Rodolphe, “to get back a little further.” 

“Why?” said Emma. 

But at this moment the voice of the councillor rose to an 
extraordinary pitch. He declaimed— 

“This is no longer the time, gentlemen, when civil discord 
ensanguined our public places, when the landlord, the business- 
man, the working-man himself, falling asleep at night, lying 
down to peaceful sleep, trembled lest he should be awakened 
suddenly by the noise of incendiary tocsins, when the most 
subversive doctrines audaciously sapped foundations.” 


“Well, some one down there might see me,’ Rodolphe re- 
sumed, “then I should have to invent excuses for a fortnight; 
and with my bad reputation c 

“Oh, you are slandering yourself,” said Emma. 

“No! It is dreadful, I assure you.” 





“But, gentlemen,” continued the councillor, “if, banishing 
from my memory the remembrance of these sad pictures, I 
carry my eyes back to the actual situation of our dear country, 
what do I see there? Everywhere commerce and the arts are 
flourishing; everywhere new means of communication, like so 
many new arteries in the body of the state, establish within it 
new relations. Our great industrial centres have recovered all 
their activity; religion, more consolidated, smiles in all hearts; 
our ports are full, confidence is born again, and France 
breathes once more!” 


“Besides,” added Rodolphe, “perhaps from the world’s point 
of view they are right.” 

“How so?” she asked. 

“What!” said he. “Do you not know that there are souls 
constantly tormented? They need by turns to dream and to 
act, the purest passions and the most turbulent joys, and thus 
they fling themselves into all sorts of fantasies, of follies.” 

Then she looked at him as one looks at a traveller who has 
voyaged over strange lands, and went on— 

“We have not even this distraction, we poor women!” 


MADAME BOVARY ay 


“A sad distraction, for happiness isn’t found in it.” 
“But is it ever found?’ she asked. 
“Yes; one day it comes,” he answered. 


“And this is what you have understood,” said the councillor, 
“You, farmers, agricultural labourers! you pacific pioneers or 
a work that belongs wholly to civilisation! you, men of pro- 
gress and morality, you have understood, I say, that political 
storms are even more redoubtable than atmospheric disturb- 
ances !” 


“It comes one day,” repeated Rodolphe, “one day suddenly, 
and when one is despairing of it. Then the horizon expands; 
it is as if a voice cried, ‘It is here!’ You feel the need of 
confiding the whole of your life, of giving everything, sacri- 
ficing everything to this being. There is no need for explana- 
tions; they understand one another. They have seen each 
other in dreams!” (And he looked at her.) “In fine, here it 
is, this treasure so sought after, here before you. It glitters, 
it flashes; yet one still doubts, one does not believe it; one 
remains dazzled, as if one went out from darkness into light.” 

And as he ended Rodolphe suited the action to the word. 
He passed his hand over his face, like a man seized with giddi- 
ness. Then he let it fall on Emma’s. She took hers away. 


“And who would be surprised at it, gentlemen? He only 
who was so blind, so plunged (I do not fear to say it), so 
plunged in the prejudices of another age as still to misunder- 
stand the spirit of agricultural populations. Where, indeed, is 
to be found more patriotism than in the country, greater devo- 
tion to the public welfare, more intelligence, in a word? And, 
gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial intelligence, vain 
ornament of idle minds, but rather that profound and balanced 
intelligence that applies itself above all else to useful. objects, 
thus contributing to the good of all, to the common amelioration 
and to the support of the state, born of respect for law and the 
practice: of duty——” 


“Ah! again!” said Rodolphe. “Always ‘duty.’ I am sick of 
the word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and 
of old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly 
drone into our ears ‘Duty, duty!’ Ah! by Jove! one’s duty is 
to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all 
the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes 
upon us.” 


112 MADAME BOVARY 
“VYet—yet——” objected Madame Bovary. 

“No, no! Why cry out against the passions? Are they not 
the one beautiful thing on the earth, the source of heroism, of 
‘enthusiasm, of poetry, music, the arts, of everything, in a 
word?” 

“But one must,” said Emma, “to some extent bow to the 
opinion’ of the world and accept its moral code.” 

“Ah! but there are two,” he replied. “The small, the 
conventional, that of men, that which constantly changes, that 
brays out so loudly, that makes such a commotion here below, 
of the earth earthy, like the mass of imbeciles you see down 
there. But the other, the eternal, that is about us and above, 
like the landscape that surrounds us, and the blue heavens that 
give us light.” 

Monsieur Lieuvain had just wiped his mouth with a pocket- 
handkerchief. He continued— 


“And what should I do here, gentlemen, pointing out to 
you the uses of agriculture? Who supplies our wants? Who 
provides our means of subsistence? Is it not the agriculturist? 
The agriculturist, gentlemen, who, sowing with laborious hand 
the fertile furrows of the country, brings forth the corn, which, 
being ground, is made into a powder by means of ingenious 
machinery, comes out thence under the name of flour, and from 
there, transported to our cities, is soon delivered at the baker’s, 
who makes it into food for poor and rich alike. Again, is it 
not the agriculturist who fattens, for our clothes, his abundant 
flocks in the pastures? For how should we clothe ourselves, 
how nourish ourselves, without the agriculturist? And, gen- 
tlemen, is it even necessary to go so far for examples? Who 
has not frequently reflected on all the momentous things that 
we get out of that modest animal, the ornament of poultry- 
yards, that provides us at once with a soft pillow for our 
bed, with succulent flesh for our tables, and eggs? But I 
should never end if I were to enumerate one after the other 
all the different products which the earth, well cultivated, 
like a generous mother, lavishes upon her children. Here it 
is the vine, elsewhere the apple tree for cider, there colza, 
farther on cheeses and flax. Gentlemen, let us not forget 
flax, which has made such great strides of late years, and to 
which I will more particularly call your attention.” 

He had no need to call it, for all the mouths of the multitude 
were wide open, as if to drink in his words. Tuvache by his 
side listened to him with staring eyes. Monsieur Derozerays 
from time to time softly closed his eyelids, and farther on the 


MADAME BOVARY 113 


chemist, with his son Napoléon between his knees, put his 
hand behind his ear in order not to lose a syllable. The chins 
of the other members of the jury went slowly up and down 
in their waistcoats in sign of approval. The firemen at the 
foot of the platform rested on their bayonets; and Binet, mo- 
tionless, stood with out-turned elbows, the point of his sabre in 
the air. Perhaps he could hear, but certainly he could see 
nothing, because of the visor of his helmet, that fell down on 
his nose. His lieutenant, the youngest son of Monsieur Tu- 
vache, had a bigger one, for his was enormous, and shook on 
his head, and from it an end of his cotton scarf peeped out. 
He smiled beneath it with a perfectly infantine sweetness, and 
his pale little face, whence drops were running, wore an expres- 
sion of enjoyment and sleepiness. 

The square as far as the houses was crowded with people. 
One saw folk leaning on their elbows at all the windows, 
others standing at doors, and Justin, in front of the chemist’s 
shop, seemed quite transfixed by the sight of what he was 
looking at. In spite of the silence Monsieur Lieuvain’s voice 
was lost in the air. It reached you in fragments of phrases, 
and interrupted here and there by the creaking of chairs in 
the crowd; then you suddenly heard the long bellowing of an 
ox, or else the bleating of the lambs, who answered one another 
at street corners. In fact, the cowherds and shepherds had 
driven their beasts thus far, and these lowed from time to 
time, while with their tongues they tore down some scrap of 
foliage that hung above their mouths. 

Rodolphe had drawn nearer to Emma, and said to her in 
a low voice, speaking rapidly— 

“Does not this conspiracy of the world revolt you? Is there 
a single sentiment it does not condemn? The noblest instincts, 
the purest sympathies are persecuted, slandered; and if at 
length two poor souls do meet, all is so organised that they 
cannot blend together. Yet they will make the attempt; they 
will flutter their wings; they will call upon each other. Oh! 
no matter. Sooner or later, in six months, ten years, they will 
come together, will love; for fate has decreed it, and they are 
born one for the other.” 

His arms were folded across his knees, and thus lifting his 
face towards Emma, close by her, he looked fixedly at her. She 
noticed in his eyes small golden lines radiating from black 
pupils; she even smelt the perfume of the pomade that made 
his hair glossy. Then a faintness came over her; she recalled 
the Viscount who had waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and 
his beard exhaled like this air an odour of vanilla and citron, 


114 MADAME BOVARY 


and mechanically she half-closed her eyes the better to breathe 
it in. But in making this movement, as she leant back in her 
chair, she saw in the distance, right on the line of the horizon, 
the oid diligence the “Hirondelle,’ that was slowly descending 
the hilt of Leux, dragging after it a long trail of dust. It was 
in this yellow carriage that Léon had so often come back to 
her, and by this route down there that he had gone for ever. 
She fancied she saw him opposite at his window; then all grew 
confused; clouds gathered; it seemed to her that she was again 
turniny in the waltz under the light of the lustres on the arm 
of the Viscount, and that Léon was not far away, that he was 
coming; and yet all the time she was conscious of the scent 
of Rodolphe’s head by her side. This sweetness of sensation 
pierced through her old desires, and these, like grains of sand 
under a gust of wind, eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of 
the perfume which suffused her soul. She opened wide her 
nostrils several times to drink in the freshness of the ivy round 
the capitals. She took off her gloves, she wiped her hands, 
then fanned her face with her handkerchief, while athwart the 
throbbing of her temples she heard the murmur of the crowd 
and the voice of the councillor intoning his phrases. He said— 


“Continue, persevere; listen neither to the suggestions of 
routine, nor to the over-hasty councils of a rash empiricism. 
Apply yourselves, above all, to the amelioration of the soil, 
to goo. manures, to the development of the equine, bovine, 
ovine, and porcine races. Let these shows be to you pacific 
arenas, where the victor in leaving it will hold forth a hand 
to the vanquished, and will fraternise with him in the hope 
of better success. And you, aged servants, humble domes- 
tics, whose hard labour no Government up to this day has 
taken into consideration, come hither to receive the reward 
of your silent virtues, and be assured that the state hence- 
forward has its eye upon you; that it encourages you, protects 
you; that it will accede to your just demands, and alleviate as 
much as in it lies the burden of your painful sacrifices.” 


Monsieur Lieuvain then sat down; Monsieur Derozerays got 
up, beginning another speech. His was not perhaps so florid 
as that of the councillor, but it recommended itself by a more 
direct style, that is to say, by more special knowledge and more 
elevated considerations. Thus the praise of the Government 
took up less space in it; religion and agriculture more. He 
showed in it the relations of these two, and how they had 
always contributed to civilisation. Rodolphe with Madame 








MADAME BOVARY 118 


Bovary was talking dreams, presentiments, magnetism. Going 
back to the cradle of society, the orator painted those fierce 
times when men lived on acorns in the heart of woods. Then 
they had left off the skins of beasts, had put on cloth, tilled the 
soil, planted the vine. Was this a good, and in this discovery 
was there not more of injury than of gain? Monsieur Dero- 
zerays set himself this problem. From magnetism little by 
little Rodolphe had come to affinities, and while the president 
was citing Cincinnatus and his plough, Diocletian planting his 
cabbages, and the Emperors of China inaugurating the year 
by the sowing of seed, the young man was explaining to the 
young woman that these irresistible attractions find their 
cause in some previous state of existence. 

“Thus we,” he said, “why did we come to know one another? 
What chance willed it? It was because across the infinite, like 
two streams that flow but to unite, our special bents of mind 
had driven us towards each other.” 

And he seized her hand; she did not withdraw it. 

“For good farming generally!” cried the president. 

“Just now, for example, when I went to your house.” 

“To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix.” 

“Did I know I should accompany you?” 

“Seventy francs.” 

“A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you—I 
remained.” 

“Manures !” 

“And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other days, 
all my life!” 

“To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!” 

“For I have never in the society of any other person found 
so complete a charm.” 

“To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin.” 

“And I shall carry away with me the remembrance of you.” 

“For a merino ram!” 

“But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a shadow.” 

“To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame.” 

“Oh, no! I shall be something in your thought, in your life, 
shall I not?” 

“Porcine race; prizes—equal, to Messrs. Lehérissé and Cullem- 
bourg, sixty francs!” 

Rodolphe was pressing her hand, and he felt it all warm and 
quivering like a captive dove that wants to fly away; but, 
whether she was trying to take it away or whether she was 
answering his pressure, she made a movement with her fingers. 
He exclaimed— 


116 MADAME BOVARY 

“Oh, I thank you! You do not repulse me! You are good! 
You understand that I am yours! Let me look at you; let 
me contemplate you!” 

A gust of wind that blew in at the window ruffled the cloth 
on the table, and in the square below all the great caps of the 
peasant women were uplifted by it like the wings of white 
butterflies fluttering. 

“Use of oil-cakes,” continued the president. He was hurry- 
ing on: “Flemish manure—flax-growing—drainage—long leases 
—domestic service.” 

Rodolphe was no longer speaking. They looked at one 
another. A supreme desire made their dry lips tremble, and 
wearily, without an effort, their fingers intertwined. 

“Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot-la-Guerriere, 
for fifty-four years of service at the same farm, a silver medal 
—value, twenty-five francs!” 

“Where is Catherine Leroux?” repeated the councillor. 

She did not present herself, and one could hear voices whis- 
pering— 

aGaO, pil. 

“Don’t be afraid!” 

“Oh, how stupid she is!” 

“Well, is she there?” cried Tuvache. 

“Yes; here she is.” 

“Then let her come up!” 

Then there came forward on the platform a little old woman 
with timid bearing, who seemed to shrink within her poor 
clothes. On her feet she wore heavy wooden clogs, and from 
her hips hung a large blue apron. Her pale face framed in 
a borderless cap was more wrinkled than a withered russet 
apple. And from the sleeves of her red jacket looked out two 
large hands with knotty joints, the dust of barns, the potash 
of washing the grease of wools had so encrusted, roughened, 
hardened these that they seemed dirty, although they had 
been rinsed in clear water; and by dint of long service they 
remained half open, as if to bear humble witness for them- 
selves of so much suffering endured. Something of monastic 
rigidity dignified her face. Nothing of sadness or of emotion 
weakened that pale look. In her constant living with animals 
she had caught their dumbness and their calm. It was the 
first time that she found herself in the midst of so large 
a company, and inwardly scared by the flags, the drums, the 
gentlemen in frock-coats, and the order of the councillor, she 
stood motionless, not knowing whether to advance or run away, 
nor why the crowd was pushing her and the jury were smiling 





—— 


MADAME BOVARY 117 


at her. Thus stood before these radiant bourgeois this half- 
century of servitude. 

“Approach, venerable Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux 
said the councillor, who had taken the list of prize-winners 
from the president; and, looking at the piece of paper and 
the old’ woman by turns, he repeated in a fatherly tone— 

“Approach! approach!” 

“Are you deaf?” said Tuvache, fidgeting in his arm-chair; 
and he began shouting in her ear, “Fifty-four years of service. 
A silver medal! Twenty-five francs! For you!” 

Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile 
of beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away 
they could hear her muttering— 

“T’'ll give it to our curé up home, to say some masses for me!” 

“What fanaticism!’ exclaimed the chemist, leaning across to 
the notary. 

The meeting was over, the crowd dispersed, and now that the 
speeches had been read, each one fell back into his place again, 
and everything into the old grooves; the masters bullied the 
servants, and these struck the animals, indolent victors, going 
back to the stalls, a green*crown on their horns. 

The National Guards, however, had gone up to the first- 
floor of the townhall with buns spitted on their bayonets, and 
the drummer of the battalion carried a basket with bottles. 
Madame Bovary took Rodolphe’s arm; he saw her home; they 
separated at her door; then he walked about alone in the 
meadow while he waited for the time of the banquet. 

The feast was long, noisy, ill served; the guests were so 
crowded that they could hardly move their elbows; and the 
narrow planks used for forms almost broke down under their 
weight. They ate hugely. Each one stuffed himself on his 
own account. Sweat stood on every brow, and a whitish steam, 
like the vapour of a stream on an autumn morning, floated 
above the table between the hanging lamps. Rodolphe, leaning 
against the calico of the tent, was thinking so earnestly of 
Emma that he heard nothing. Behind him on the grass the 
servants were piling up the dirty plates, his neighbours were 
talking; he did not answer them; they filled his glass, and there 
was silence in his thoughts in spite of the growing noise. He 
was dreaming of what she had said, of the line of her lips; her 
_ face, as in a magic mirror, shone on the plates of the shakos, the 
folds of her gown fell along the walls, and days of love unrolled 
to all infinity before him in the vistas of the future. 

He saw her again in the evening during the fireworks, 
but she was with her husband, Madame Homais, and the 


1”? 


“118 MADAME BOVARY 


druggist, who was worrying about the danger of stray rockets, 
and every moment he left the company to go and give some 
advice to Binet. 

The pyrotechnic pieces sent to Monsieur Tuvache had, through 
an excess of caution, been shut up in his cellar, and so the 
damp powder would not light, and the principal set piece, that 
was to represent a dragon biting his tail, failed completely. 
Now and then a meagre Roman-candle went off; then the 
gaping crowd sent up a shout that mingled with the cry of the 
women, whose waists were being squeezed in the darkness. 
Emma silently nestled gently against Charles’s shoulder; then, 
raising her chin, she watched the luminous rays of the rockets 
against the dark sky. Rodolphe gazed at her in the light of 
the burning lanterns. 

They went out one by one. The stars shone out. A few 
drops of rain began to fall. She knotted her fichu round her 
bare head. 

At this moment the councillor’s carriage came out from the 
inn. His coachman, who was drunk, suddenly dozed off, and 
one could see from the distance, above the hood, between the 
two lanterns, the mass of his body, that swayed from right 
to left with the giving of the traces. 

“Truly,” said the druggist, “one ought to proceed most rig- 
orously against drunkenness! I should like to see written up 
weekly at the door of the townhall on a board ad hoc the names 
of all those who during the week got intoxicated on alcohol. 
Besides, with regard to statistics, one would thus have, as it 
were, public records that one could refer to in case of need. 
But excuse me!” 

And. he once more ran off to the captain. The latter was 
going back to see his lathe again. 

“Perhaps you would not do ill,” Homais said to him, “to 
send one of your men, or to go yourself " 

“Leave me alone!” answered the tax-collector. “It’s all 
right!” 

“Do not be uneasy,” said the druggist, when he returned 
to his friends. “Monsieur Binet has assured me that all pre- 
cautions have been taken. No sparks have fallen; the pumps 
are full. Let us go to rest.” 

“Ma foi! I want it,” said Madame Homais, yawning at 
large. “But never mind; we’ve had a beautiful day for our 





Rodolphe repeated in a low voice, and with a tender look, 
“Oh, yes! very beautiful!” 
And having bowed to one another, they separated. 


MADAME BOVARY 119 


”? 


Two days later, in the “Fanal de Rouen,” there was a long 
article on the show. Homais had composed it with verve 
the very next morning. 

“Why these festoons, these flowers, these garlands? Whither 
hurries this crowd like the waves of a furious sea under the 
torrents of a tropical sun pouring its heat upon our heads?” 

Then he spoke of the condition of the peasants. Certainly 
the Government was doing much, but not enough. “Courage!” 
he cried to it; “a thousand reforms are indispensable; let us 
accomplish them!” Then touching on the entry of the council- 
lor, he did not forget “the martial air of our militia,” nor “our 
most merry village maidens,” nor the “bald-headed old men 
like patriarchs who were there, and of whom some, the remnants 
of our phalanxes, still felt their hearts beat at the manly sound 
of the drums.” He cited himself among the first of the mem- 
bers of the jury, and he even called attention in a note to the 
fact that Monsieur Homais, chemist, had sent a memoir on 
cider to the agricultural society. When he came to the dis- 
tribution of the prizes, he painted the joy of the prize-winners 
in dithyrambic strophes. “The father embraced the son, the 
brother the brother, the husband his consort. More than one 
showed his humble medal with pride; and no doubt when he 
got home to his good housewife, he hung it up weeping on 
the modest walls of his cot. 

“About six o’clock a banquet prepared in the meadow of 
Monsieur Leigeard brought together the principal personages 
of the féte. The greatest cordiality reigned here. Divers 
toasts were proposed: Monsieur Lieuvain, the King; Monsieur 
Tuvache, the Prefect; Monsieur Derozerays, Agriculture; 
Monsieur Homais, Industry and the Fine Arts, those twin sisters ; 
Monsieur Leplichey, Progress. In the evening some brilliant 
fireworks on a sudden illumined the air. One would have 
called it a veritable kaleidoscope, a real operatic scene; and for 
a moment our little locality might have thought itself transported 
into the midst of a dream of the ‘Thousand and One Nights.’ 

“Let us state that no untoward event disturbed this family 
meeting.” And he added: “Only the absence of the clergy was 
remarked. No doubt the priests understand progress in another 
fashion. Just as you please, messieurs the followers of Loyola!” 


120 MADAME BOVARY 


IX 


Six weeks passed. Rodolphe did not come again. At last 
one evening he appeared. 

The day after the show he had said to himself— 

“We mustn’t go back too soon; that would be a mistake.” 

And at the end of a week he had gone off hunting. After 
the hunting he had thought it was too late, and then he rea- 
soned thus— 

“If from the first day she loved me, she must from impatience 
to see me again love me more. Let’s go on with it!” 

And he knew that his calculation had been right when, on 
entering the room, he saw Emma turn pale. 

She was alone. The day was drawing in. The small muslin 
curtain along the windows deepened the twilight, and the gilding 
of the barometer, on which the rays of the sun fell, shone in 
the looking-glass between the meshes of the coral. 

Rodolphe remained standing, and Emma hardly answered 
his first conventional phrases. 

“T,” he said, “have been busy. I have been ill.” 

“Seriously?” she cried. 

“Well,” said Rodolphe, sitting down at her side on a foot- 
stool, “no; it was because I did not want to come back.” 

“Why ?” 

“Can you not guess?”. 

He looked at her again, but so hard that she lowered her 
head, blushing. He went on— 

“Emma !” 

“Sir,” she said, drawing back a little. 

“Ah! you see,” replied he in a melancholy voice, “that I 
was right not to come back; for this name, this name that fills 
my whole soul, and that escaped me, you forbid me to use! 
Madame Bovary! why all the world calls you thus! Besides, 
it is not your name; it is the name of another!” he repeated, 
“of another!” And he hid his face in his hands. “Yes, I think 
of you constantly. The memory of you drives me to despair. 
Ah! forgive me! I will leave you! Farewell! I will go far 
away, so far that you will never hear of me again; and yet— 
to-day—I know not what force impelled me towards you, For 
one does not struggle against Heaven; one cannot resist the 
smile of angels; one is carried away by that which is beautiful. 
charming, adorable.” 

It was the first time that Emma had heard such words spoken 





MADAME BOVARY 12% 


to herself, and her pride, like one who reposes bathed in 
warmth, expanded softly and fully at this glowing language. 

“But if I did not come,” he continued, “if I could not see 
you, at least I have gazed long on all that surrounds you. At 
night—every night—I arose; I came hither; I watched your 
house, its glimmering in the moon, the trees in the garden 
swaying before your window, and the little lamp, a gleam shin- 
ing through the window-panes in the darkness. Ah! you never 
knew that there, so near you, so far from you, was a poor 
wretch !” 

She turned towards him with a sob. 

“Oh, you are good!” she said. 

“No, I love you, that is all! You do not doubt that! Tell 
me—one word—only one word!” 

And Rodolphe imperceptibly glided from the footstool to 
the ground; but a sound of wooden shoes was heard in the 
kitchen, and he noticed the door of the room was not closed. 

“How kind it would be of you,” he went on, rising, “if you 
would humour a whim of mine.” It was to go over her house; 
he wanted to know it; and Madame Bovary seeing no objec- 
tion to this, they both rose, when Charles came in. 

“Good morning, doctor,” Rodolphe said to him. 

The doctor, flattered at this unexpected title, launched out 
into obsequious phrases. Of this the other took advantage to 
pull himself together a little. 

“Madame was speaking to me,” he then said, “about her 
health.” 

Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand anxieties ; 
his wife’s palpitations of the heart were beginning again. Then 
Rodolphe asked if riding would not be good. 

“Certainly! excellent! just the thing! There’s an idea! You 
ought to follow it up.” 

And as she objected that she had no horse, Monsieur Ro- 
dolphe offered one. She refused his offer; he did not insist. 
Then to explain his visit he said that his ploughman, the man 
of the blood-letting, still suffered from giddiness. 

“T’ll call round,” said Bovary. 

“No, no! IT’ll send him to you; we'll come; that will be 
more convenient for you.” 

“Ah! very good! I thank you.” 

And as soon as they were alone, “Why don’t you accept 
Monsieur Boulanger’s kind offer?” 

She assumed a sulky air, invented a thousand excuses, and 
finally declared that perhaps it would look odd. 

“Well, what the deuce do I care for that?” said Charles, 


122 MADAME BOVARY 


making a pirouette. “Health before everything! You are 
wrong.” 

“And how do you think I can ride when I haven’t got a 
habit ?” 

“You must order one.” he answered. 

The riding-habit decided her. 

When the habit was ready, Charles wrote to Monsieur Bou- 
langer than his wife was at his command, and that they counted 
on his good-nature. 

The next day at noon Rodolphe appeared at Charles’s door 
with two saddle-horses. One had pink rosettes at his ears 
and a deerskin side-saddle. 

Rodolphe had put on high soft boots, saying to himself 
that no doubt she had never seen anything like them. In fact, 
Emma was charmed with his appearance as he stood on the 
landing in his great velvet coat and white corduroy breeches. 
She was ready; she was waiting for him. 

Justin escaped from the chemist’s to see her start, and the 
chemist also came out. He was giving Monsieur Boulanger 
a little good advice. 

“An accident happens so easily. Be careful! Your horses 
perhaps are mettlesome. 

She heard a noise above her; it was Félicité drumming on 
the window-panes to amuse little Berthe. The child blew her 
a kiss; her mother answered with a wave of her whip. 

“A pleasant ride!’ cried Monsieur Homais. “Prudence! 
above all, prudence!’ And he flourished his newspaper as he 
saw them disappear. 

As soon as he felt the ground, Emma’s horse set off at a 
gallop. Rodolphe galloped by her side. Now and then they 
exchanged a word. Her figure slightly bent, her hand well 
up, and her right arm stretched out, she gave herself up to the 
cadence of the movement that rocked her in her saddle. At 
the bottom of the hill Rodolphe gave his horse its head; they 
started together at a bound, then at the top suddenly the 
horses stopped, and her large blue veil fell about her. 

It was early in October. There was fog over the land. 
Hazy clouds hovered on the horizon between the outlines of 
the hills; others, rent asunder, floated up and disappeared. 
Sometimes through a rift in the clouds, beneath a ray of sun- 
shine, gleamed from afar the roofs of Yonville, with the gar- 
dens at the water’s edge, the yards, the walls and the church 
steeple. Emma half closed her eyes to pick out her house, and 
never had this poor village where she lived appeared so small. 
From the height on which they were the whole valley seemed 


MADAME BOVARY 123 


an immense pale lake sending off its vapour into the air. 
Clumps of trees here and there stood out like black rocks, and 
the tall lines of the poplars that rose above the mist were 
like a beach stirred by the wind. 

By the side, on the turf between the pines, a brown light 
shimmered in the warm atmosphere. The earth, ruddy like 
the powder of tobacco, deadened the noise of their steps, and 
with the edge of their shoes the horses as they walked kicked 
the fallen fir cones in front of them. 

Rodolphe and Emma thus went along the skirt of the wood. 
She turned away from time to time to avoid his look, and 
then she saw only the pine trunks in lines, whose monotonous 
succession made her a little giddy. The horses were panting; 
the leather of the saddles creaked. 

Just as they were entering the forest the sun shone out. 

“God protects us!” said Rodolphe. 

“Do you think so?” she said. 

“Forward! forward!” he continued. 

He “tchk’d” with his tongue. The two beasts set off at a 
trot. Long ferns by the roadside caught in Emma’s stirrup. 
Rodolphe leant forward and removed them as they rode along. 
At other times, to turn aside the branches, he passed close 
to her, and Emma felt his knee brushing against her leg. The 
sky was now blue, the leaves no longer stirred. There were 
spaces full of heather in flower, and plots of violets alternated 
with the confused patches of the trees that were grey, fawn, or 
golden coloured, according to the nature of their leaves. Often 
in the thicket was heard the fluttering of wings, or else the 
hoarse, soft cry of the ravens flying off amidst the oaks. 

They dismounted. Rodolphe fastened up the horses. She 
walked on in front on the moss between the paths. But her 
long habit got in her way, although she held it up by the 
skirt; and Rodolphe, walking behind her, saw between the 
black cloth and the black shoe the fineness of her white stock- 
ing, that seemed to him as if it were a part of her nakedness. 

She stopped. “I am tired,” she said. 

“Come, try again,” he went on. “Courage!” 

Then some hundred paces farther on she again stopped, and 
through her veil, that fell sideways from her man’s hat over 
her hips, her face appeared in a bluish transparency as if she 
were floating under azure waves. 

“But where are we going?” 

He did not answer. She was breathing irregularly. Ro- 
do'tphe looked round him biting his moustache. They came 
to a larger space where the coppice had been cut. They sat 


~ 


124 MADAME BOVARY 


down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and Rodolphe began speak- 
ing to her of his love. He did not begin by frightening her 
with compliments. He was calm, serious, melancholy. 

Emma listened to him with bowed head, and stirred the bits 
of wood on the ground with the tip of her foot. 

But at the words, “Are not our destinies now one?——” 

“Oh, no!” she replied. “You know that well. It is im- 
possible !” 

She rose to go. He seized her by the wrist. She stopped. 
Then, having gazed at him for a few moments with an amorous 
and humid look, she said hurriedly— 

“Ah! do not speak of it again! Where are the horses? Let 
us go back.” 

He made a gesture of anger and annoyance. She repeated— 

“Where are the horses? Where are the horses?” 

Then smiling a strange smile, his pupil fixed, his teeth set, 
he advanced with outstretched arms. She recoiled trembling. 
She stammered— 

“Oh, you frighten me! You hurt me! Let me go!” 

“Tf it must be,” he went on, his face changing; and he 
again became respectful, caressing, timid. She gave him her 
arm. They went back. He said— 

“What was the matter with you? Why? I do not under- 
stand. You were mistaken, no doubt. In my soul you are as 
a Madonna on a pedestal, in a place lofty, secure, immaculate. 
But I want you for my life. I must have your eyes, your 
voice, your thought! Be my friend, my sister, my angel!” 

And he put out his arm round her waist. She feebly tried to 
disengage herself. He supported her thus as they walked along. 

But they heard the two horses browsing on the leaves. 

“Oh! one moment!” said Rodolphe. “Do not let us go! 
Siays% 

He drew her farther on to a small pool where duckweeds 
made a greenness on the water. Faded waterlilies lay motion- 
less between the reeds. At the noise of their steps in the grass, 
frogs jumped away to hide themselves. 

“I am wrong! I am wrong!” she said. “I am mad to listen 
to you!” 

“Why? Emma! Emma!” 

“Oh, Rodolphe!” said the young woman slowly, leaning on 
his shoulder. 

The cloth of her habit caught against the velvet of his coat. 
She threw back her white neck, swelling with a sigh, and fal- 
tering, in tears, with a long shudder and hiding her face, she 
gave herself up to him. 


MADAME BOVARY net 


The shades of night were falling; the horizontal sa she 
between the branches dazzled the eyes. Here and Seo 
around her, in the leaves or on the ground, trembled fare 
patches, as if humming-birds flying about had scattered their 
feathers. Silence was everywhere; something sweet seemed 
to come forth from the trees; she felt her heart, whose beating 
had begun again, and the blood coursing through her flesh like 
a stream of milk. Then far away, beyond the wood, on the 
other hills, she heard a vague prolonged cry, a voice which 
lingered, and in silence she heard it mingling like music with 
the last pulsations of her throbbing nerves. Rodolphe, a 
cigar between his lips, was mending with his penknife one of 
the two broken bridles. 

They returned to Yonville by the same road. On the mud 
they saw again the traces of their horses side by side, the 
same thickets, the same stones_in the grass; nothing around 
them seemed changed; and yet for her something had happened 
more stupendous than if the mountains had moved in their 
places. Rodolphe now and again bent forward and took her 
hand to kiss it. 

She was charming on horseback—upright, with her slender 
waist, her knee bent on the mane of her horse, her face some: 
what flushed by the fresh air in the red of the evening. 

On entering Yonville she made her horse prance in the road 
People looked at her from the windows. 

At dinner her husband thought she looked well, but she 
pretended not to hear him when he inquired about her ride, 
and she remained sitting there with her elbow at the side of 
her plate between the two lighted candles. 

“Emma!” he said. 

“What?” 

“Well, I spent the afternoon at Monsieur Alexandre’s. He 
has an old cob, still very fine, only a little broken-kneed, 
and that could be bought, I am sure, for a hundred crowns.” 
He added, “And thinking it might please you, I have bespoken 
it—bought it. Have I done right? Do tell me!” 

She nodded her head in assent; then a quarter of an hour 
later—— 

“Are you going out to-night?” she asked. 

“Yes. Why?” 

“Oh, nothing, nothing, my dear!” 

And as soon as she had got rid of Charles she went ne shut 
herself up in her room. 

At first she felt stunned; she saw the trees, the paths, the 
ditches, Rodolphe, and she again felt the pressure of his arm, 
while the leaves rustled and the reeds whistled. 


126 MADAME BOVARY 


But when she saw herself in the glass she wondered at her 
face. Never had her eyes been so large, so black, of so pro- 
found a depth. Something subtle about her being transfigured 
her. She repeated, “I have a lover! a lover!” delighting at the 
idea as if a second puberty had come to her. So at last she 
was to know those joys of love, that fever of happiness of 
which she had despaired! Sne was entering upon marvels 
where all would be passion, ecstasy, delirium. An azure in- 
finity encompassed her, the heights of sentiment sparkled under 
her thought, and ordinary existence appeared only afar off, 
down below in the shade, through the interspaces of these 
heights. 

Then she recalled the heroines of the books that she had 
read, and the lyric legion of these adulterous women began 
to sing in her memory with the voice of sisters that charmed 
her. She became herself, as it were, an actual part of these 
imaginings, and realised the love-dream of her youth as she 
saw herself in this type of amorous women whom she had so 
envied. Besides, Emma felt a satisfaction of revenge. Had 
she not suffered enough? But now she triumphed, and the 
love so long pent up burst forth in full joyous bubblings. She 
tasted it without remorse, without anxiety, without trouble. 

The day following passed with a new sweetness. They made 
vows to one another. She told him of her sorrows. Rodolphe 
interrupted her with kisses; and she, looking at him through 
half-closed eyes, asked him to call her again by her name— 
to say that he loved her. They were in the forest, as yester- 
day, in the shed of some wooden-shoe maker. The walls 
were of straw, and the roof so low they had to stoop. They 
were seated side by side on a bed of dry leaves. 

From that day forth they wrote to one another regularly 
every evening. Emma placed her letter at the end of the 
garden, by the river, in a fissure of the wall. Rodolphe came 
to fetch it, and put another there, that she always found fault 
with as too short. 

One morning, when Charles had gone out before daybreak, 
she was seized with the fancy to see Rodolphe at once. She 
would go quickly to La Huchette, stay there an hour, and be 
back again at Yonville while every one was still asleep. This 
idea made her pant with desire, and she soon found herself 
in the middle of the field, walking with rapid steps, without 
looking behind her. 

Day was just breaking. Emma from afar recognised her 
lover’s house. Its two dove-tailed weathercocks stood out 
black against the pale dawn. 


MADAME BOVARY 127 


Beyond the farmyard there was a detached building that she 
thought must be the chateau. She entered it as if the doors 
at her approach had opened wide of their own accord. A large 
straight staircase led up to the corridor. Emma raised the 
latch of a door, and suddenly at the end of the room she saw 
a man sleeping. It was Rodolphe. She uttered a cry. 

“You here? You here?” he repeated. “How did you man- 
age to come? Ah! your dress is damp.” 

This first piece of daring successful, now every time Charles 
went out early Emma dressed quickly and slipped on tiptoe 
down the steps that led to the waterside. 

But when the plank for the cows was taken up, she had 
to go by the walls alongside of the river; the bank was slip- 
pery; in order not to fall she caught hald of the tufts of faded 
wallflowers. Then she went across ploughed fields, in which 
she sank, stumbling, and clogging her thin shoes. Her scarf, 
knotted round her head, fluttered to the wind in the meadows. 
She was afraid of the oxen; she began to run; she arrived 
out of breath, with rosy cheeks, and breathing out from her 
whole person a fresh perfume of sap, of verdure, of the open 
air. At this hour Rodolphe still slept. It was like a spring 
morning coming into his room. 

The yellow curtains along the windows let a heavy, whitish 
light enter softly. Emma felt about, opening and closing her 
eyes, while the drops of dew hanging from her hair formed, 
as it were, a topaz aureole around her face. Rodolphe, laugh- 
ing, drew her to him and pressed her to his breast. 

Then she examined the apartment, opened the drawers of the 
tables, combed her hair with his comb, and looked at herself 
in his shaving-glass. Often she even put between her teeth 
the big pipe that lay on the table by the bed, amongst lemons 
and pieces of sugar near a bottle of water. 

It took them a good quarter of an hour to say good-bye, 
Then Emma cried. She would have wished never to leave 
Rodolphe. Something stronger than herself forced her to 
him; so much so, that one day, seeing her come unexpectedly, 
he frowned as one put out. 

“What is the matter with you?” she said. “Are you ill! 
Tell me!” 

At last he declared with a serious air that her visits were 
becoming imprudent—that she was compromising herself. 


128 MADAME BOVARY 


x 


(GRADUALLY Rodolphe’s fears took possession of her. At 

first, love had intoxicated her, and she had thought of 
nothing beyond. But now that he was indispensable to her life, 
she feared to lose anything of this, or even that it should be 
disturbed. When she came back from his house, she looked 
all about her, anxiously watching every form that passed in the 
horizon, and every village window from which she could be 
seen. She listened for steps, cries, the noise of the ploughs, 
and she stopped short, white, and trembling more than the 
aspen leaves swaying overhead. 

One morning as she was thus returning, she suddenly thought 
she saw the long barrel of a carbine that seemed to be aimed 
at her. It stuck outsideways from the end of a small tub half- 
buried in the grass on the edge of a ditch. Emma, half-fainting 
with terror, nevertheless walked on, and a man stepped out of 
the tub like a Jack-in-the-box. He had gaiters buckled up to 
the knees, his cap pulled down over his eyes, trembling lips, 
and a red nose. It was Captain Binet lying in ambush for 
wild ducks. 

“You ought to have called out long ago!” he exclaimed. 
“When one sees a gun, one should always give warning.” 

The tax-collector was thus trying to hide the fright he had 
had, for a prefectorial order having prohibited duck-hunting 
except in boats, Monsieur Binet, despite his respect for the 
laws, was infringing them, and so he every moment expected to 
see the rural guard turn up. But this anxiety whetted his pleas- 
ure, and, all alone in his tub, he congratulated himself on his 
luck and on his ’cuteness. 

At sight of Emma he seemed relieved from a great weight, 
and at once entered upon a conversation. 

“Tt isn’t warm; it’s nipping.” 

Emma answered nothing. He went on— 

“And you're out so early?” 

“Yes,” she said stammering; “I am just coming from the 
nurse where my child is.” 

“Ah! very good! very good! For myself, I am here, just 
as you see me, since break of day; but the weather is so 
muggy, that unless one had the bird at the mouth of the 
gun ” 

“Good evening, Monsieur Binet,” she interrupted him, turning 
on her heel. 





MADAME BOVARY 129 


“Your servant, madame,” he replied drily; and he went back 
into his tub. 
Emma regretted having left the tax-collector so abruptly. No 
doubt he would form unfavourable conjectures. The story 
about the nurse was the worst possible excuse, every one at 
Yonville knowing that the little Bovary had.been at home 
with her parents for a year. Besides, no one was living in 
this direction; this path led only to La Huchette. Binet, then, 
would guess whence she came, and he would not keep silence; 
he would talk, that was certain. She remained until evening 
racking her brain with every conceivable lying project, and 
had constantly before her eyes that imbecile with the game-bag. 

Charles after dinner, seeing her gloomy, proposed, by way 
of distraction, to take her to the chemist’s, and the first person 
she caught sight of in the shop was the tax-collector again. 
He was standing in front of the counter, lit up by the gleams 
of the red bottle, and was saying— 

“Please give me half an ounce of vitriol.” 

“Justin,” cried the druggist, “bring us the sulphuric acid.” 
Then to Emma, who was going up to Madame Homais’ room, 
“No, stay here; it isn’t worth while going up; she is just coming 
down. Warm yourself at the stove in the meantime. Excuse 
me. Good-day, doctor” (for the chemist much enjoyed pro- 
nouncing the word “doctor,” as if addressing another by it 
reflected on himself some of the grandeur that he found in it), 
“Now, take care not to upset the mortars! You’d better fetch 
some chairs from the little room; you know very well that the 
arm-chairs are not to be taken out of the drawing-room.” 

And to put his arm-chair back in its place he was darting 
away from the counter, when Binet asked him for half an 
ounce of sugar acid. 

“Sugar acid!” said the chemist contemptuously, “don’t know 
it; I’m ignorant of it! But perhaps you want oxalic acid. It 
is oxalic acid, isn’t it?” 

Binet explained that he wanted a corrosive to make himself 
some copper-water with which to remove rust from his hunting 
things. 

Emma shuddered. The chemist began saying— 

“Indeed the weather is not propitious. on account of the 
damp.” 

“Nevertheless,” replied the tax-collector, with a sly look, 
“there are people who like it.” 

She was stifling. 

“And give me 

“Will he never go?” thought she. 


” 





130 MADAME BOVARY 


“Half an ounce of resin and turpentine, four ounces of 

yellow wax, and three half ounces of animal charcoal, if you 
' please, to clean the varnished leather of my togs.” 

The druggist was beginning to cut the wax when Madame 
Homais appeared, Irma in her arms, Napoleon on by her side, 
and Athalie following. She sat down on the velvet seat by 
the window, and the iad squatted down on a footstool, while 
his eldest sister hovered round the jujube box near her papa. 
The latter was filling funnels and corking phials, sticking on 
labels, making up parcels. Around him all were silent; only 
from time to time were heard the weights jingling in the balance, 
and a few low words from the chemist giving directions to his 
pupil. 

“And how’s the little woman?” suddenly asked Madame 
Homais. 

“Silence!” exclaimed her husband, who was writing down 
some figures in his waste-book. 

“Why didn’t you bring her?” she went on in a low voice. 

“Hush! hush!” said Emma, pointing with her finger to the 
druggist. : 

But Binet, quite absorbed in looking over his bill, had prob- 
ably heard nothing. At last he went out. Then Emma, relieved, 
uttered a deep sigh. 

“How hard you are breathing!” said Madame Homais. 

“Well, you see, it’s rather warm,” she replied. 

So the next day they talked over how to arrange their ren- 
dezvous. Emma wanted to bribe her servant with a present, 
but it would be better to find some safe house at Yonville. 
Rodolphe promised to look for one. 

All through the winter, three or four times a week, in the 
dead of night he came to the garden. Emma had on purpose 
taken away the key of the gate, which Charles thought lost. 

To call her, Rodolphe threw a sprinkle of sand at the shutters. 
She jumped up with a start; but sometimes he had to wait, for 
Charles had a mania for chatting by the fireside, and he would | 
not stop. She was wild with impatience; if her eyes could 
have done it, she would have hurled him out at the window. 
At last she would begin to undress, then take up a book, and 
go on reading very quietly as if the book amused her. But 
Charles, who was in bed, called to her to come too. 

“Come, now, Emma,” he said, “it is time.” 

“Yes, I am coming,” she answered. 

Then, as the candles dazzled him, he turned to the wall and 
fell asleep. She escaped, smiling, palpitating, undressed. 

Rodolphe had a large cloak; he wrapped her in it, and putting 


MADAME BOVARY 131 


his arm round her waist, he drew her without a word to the 
end of the garden. 

It was in the arbour, on the same seat of old sticks where 
formerly Léon had looked at her so amorously on the summer 
evenings. She never thought of him now. 

The stars shone through the leafless jasmine branches. Be- 
hind them they heard the river flowing, and now and again on 
the bank the rustling of the dry reeds. Masses of shadow 
here and there loomed out in the darkness, and sometimes, 
vibrating with one movement, they rose up and swayed like 
immense black waves pressing forward to engulf them. The 
cold of the nights made them clasp closer; the sighs of their 
lips seemed to them deeper; their eyes, that they could hardly 
see, larger; and in the midst of the silence low words were 
spoken that fell on their souls sonorous, crystalline, and that 
reverberated in multiplied vibrations. 

When the night was rainy, they took refuge in the consulting- 
room between the cart-shed and the stable. She lighted one 
of the kitchen candles that she had hidden behind the books. 
Rodolphe settled down there as if at home. The sight of the 
library, of the bureau, of the whole apartment, in fine, excited 
his merriment, and he could not refrain from making jokes 
about Charles, which rather embarrassed Emma. She would 
have liked to see him more serious, and even on occasions more 
dramatic; as, for example, when she thought she heard a noise 
of approaching steps in the alley. 

“Some one is coming!” she said. 

He blew out the light. 

“Have you your pistols?” 

“Why?” 

“Why, to defend yourself,” replied Emma. 

“From your husband? Oh, poor devil!” And Rodolphe 
finished his sentence with a gesture that said, “I could crush 
him with a flip of my finger.” 

She was wonder-stricken at his bravery, although she felt in 
it a sort of indecency and a naive coarseness that scandalised 
her. : 
Rodolphe reflected a good deal on the affair of the pistols. 
If she had spoken seriously, it was very ridiculous, he thought, 
even odious; for he had no reason to hate the good Charles, 
not being what is called devoured by jealousy; and on this 
subject Emma had taken a great vow that he did not think in 
the best of taste. 

Besides, she was growing very sentimental. She had insisted 
on exchanging miniatures; they had cut off handfuls of hair, 


132 MADAME BOVARY 


and now she was asking for a ring—a real wedding-ring, in 
sign of an eternal union. She often spoke to him of the 
evening chimes, of the voices of nature. Then she talked to 
him of her mother—hers! and of his mother—his! Rodolphe 
had lost his twenty years ago. Emma none the less consoled 
him with caressing words as one would have done a lost child, 
and she sometimes even said to him, gazing at the moon— 

“T am sure that above there together they approve of our 
love.” 

But she was so pretty. He had possessed so few women of 
such ingenuousness. This love without debauchery was a new 
experience for him, and, drawing him out of his lazy habits, 
caressed at once his pride and his sensuality. Emma’s enthu- 
siasm, which his bourgeois good sense disdained, seemed to him 
in his heart of hearts charming, since it was lavished on him. 
Then, sure of being loved, he no longer kept up appearances, 
and insensibly his ways changed. 

He had no longer, as formerly, words so gentle that they 
made her cry, nor passionate caresses that made her mad, so 
that their great love, which engrossed her life, seemed to lessen 
beneath her like the water of a stream absorbed into its channel, 
and she could see the bed of it. She would not believe it; she 
redoubled in tenderness, and Rodolph concealed his indifferende 
less and less. 

She did not know if she regretted having yielded to him, or 
whether she did not wish, on the contrary, to enjoy him the 
more. The humiliation of feeling herself weak was turning to 
rancour, tempered by their voluptuous pleasures. It was not 
affection; it was like a continual seduction. He subjugated her ; 
she almost feared him. 

Appearances, nevertheless, were calmer than ever, Rodolphe 
having succeeded in carrying out the adultery after his own 
fancy; and at the end of six months, when the spring-time 
came, they were to one another like a married couple, tranquilly 
keeping up a domestic flame. 

It was the time of year when old Rouault sent his turkey 
in remembrance of the setting of his leg. The present always 
arrived with a letter. Emma cut the string that tied it to the 
basket, and read the following lines :— 


“My Dear Cuitpren,—I hope this will find you in good 
health, and that it will be as good as the others, for it seems 
to me a little more tender, if I may venture to say so, an} 
heavier. But next time, for a change, I'll give you a turkey- 
cock, unless you have a preference for some dabs; and send 


MADAME BOVARY 133: 


‘me back the hamper, if you please, with the two old ones. I 
have had an accident with my cart-sheds, whose covering flew 
off one windy night among the trees. The harvest has not 
been over-good either. Finally, I don’t know when I shall come 
to see you. It is so difficult now to leave the house since I am 
alone, my poor Emma.” 


Here there was a break in the lines, as if the old fellow had 
dropped his pen to dream a little while. 


“For myself, I am very well, except for a cold I caught the 
other day at the fair at Yvetot, where I had gone to hire a shep- 
herd, having turned away mine because he was too dainty. How 
we are to be pitied with such a lot of thieves! Besides, he 
was also rude. I heard from a pedlar, who, travelling through 
your part of the country this winter, had a tooth drawn, that 
Bovary was as usual working hard. That doesn’t surprise me; 
and he showed me his tooth; we had some coffee together. I 
asked him if he had seen you, and he said not, but that he 
had seen two horses in the stables, from which I conclude that 
business is looking up. So much the better, my dear children, 
and may God send you every imaginable happiness! It grieves 
me not yet to have seen my dear little grand-daughter, Berthe 
Bovary. I have planted an Orleans plum-tree for her in the 
garden under your room, and I won’t have it touched unless it 
is to have jam made for her by and bye, that I will keep in the 
cupboard for her when she comes. 

“Good-bye, my dear children. I kiss you, my girl, you too, 
my son-in-law, and the little one on both cheeks. I am, with 
best compliments, your loving father, 

“THEODORE ROUAULT.” 


She held the coarse paper in her fingers for some minutes. 
The spelling mistakes were interwoven one with the other, and 
Emma followed the kindly thought that cackled right through 
it like a hen half hidden in a hedge of thorns. The writing 
had been dried with ashes from the hearth, for a little grey 
powder slipped from the letter on to her dress, and she almost 
thought she saw her father bending over the hearth to take up 
the tongs. How long since she had been with him, sitting 
on the footstool in the chimney-corner, where she used to burn 
the end of a bit of wood in the great flame of the sea-sedges! 
She remembered the summer evenings all full of sunshine. The 
colts neighed when any one passed by, and galloped, galloped. 
Under her window there was a beehive, and sometimes the bees 


~ 


134 MADAME BOVARY 


t 


y 


wheeling round in the light struck against her window like 
rebounding balls of gold. 'What happiness there had been at that 
time, what freedom, what hope! What an abundance of illu- 
sions! Nothing was left of them now. She had got rid of 
. them all in her soul’s life, in all her successive conditions of 
life,—maidenhood, her marriage, and her love ;—thus constantly 
losing them all her life through, like a traveller who leaves 
something of his wealth at every inn along his road. 

But what then made her so unhappy? What was the ex- 
traordinary catastrophe that had transformed her? And she 
raised her head, looking round as if to seek the cause of that 
which made her suffer. 

An April ray was dancing on the china of the whatnot; the 
fire burned; beneath her slippers she felt the softness of the 
carpet; the day was bright, the air warm, and she heard her 
child shouting with laughter. 

In fact, the little girl was just then rolling on the lawn in 
the midst of the grass that was being turned. She was lying 
flat on her stomach at the top of a rick. The servant was 
holding her by her skirt. Lestiboudois was raking by her side, 
and every time he came near she lent forward, beating the air 
with both her arms. 

“Bring her to me,” said her mother, rushing to embrace her. 
“How I love you, my poor child! How I love you!” 

Then noticing that the tips of her ears were rather dirty, 
she rang at once for warm water, and washed her, changed 
her linen, her stockings, her shoes, asked a thousand questions 
about her health, as if on the return from a long journey, and 
finally, kissing her again and crying a little, she gave her back 
to the servant, who stood quite thunderstricken at this excess 
of tenderness. 

That evening Rodolphe found her more serious than usual. 

“That will pass over,” he concluded; “it’s a whim.” 

And he missed three rendezvous running. When he did come, 
she showed herself cold and almost contemptuous. 

“Ah! you’re losing your time, my lady!” 

And he pretended not to notice her melancholy sighs, nor 
the handkerchief she took out. 

Then Emma repented. She even asked herself why she 
detested Charles; if it had not been better to have been able to 
love him? But he gave her no opportunities for such a revival 
of sentiment, so that she was much embarrassed by her desire 
for sacrifice, when the druggist came just in time to provide 
her with an opportunity. 


MADAME BOVARY 133 


XI 


HE had recently read a eulogy on a new method for curing 

club-foot, and as he was a partisan of progress, he con- 
ceived the patriotic idea that Yonville, in order to keep to the 
fore, ought to have some operations for strephopody or club- 
foot. 

“For,” said he to Emma, “what risk is there? See” (and 
he enumerated on his fingers the advantages of the attempt), 
“success, almost certain relief and beautifying of the patient, 
celebrity acquired by the operator. Why, for example, should 
not your husband relieve poor Hippolyte of the ‘Lion d’Or’? 
Note that he would not fail to tell about his cure to all the 
travellers, and then” (Homais lowered his voice and looked 
round him) “who is to prevent me from sending a short para- 
graph on the subject to the paper? Eh! goodness me! an 
article gets about; it is talked of; it ends by making a snowball! 
And who knows? who knows?” 

In fact, Bovary might succeeed. Nothing proved to Emma 
that he was not clever; and what a satisfaction for her to have 
urged him to a step by which his reputation and fortune would 
be increased! She only wished to lean on something more solid 
than love. 

Charles, urged by the druggist and by her, allowed himself 
to be. persuaded. He sent to Rouen for Dr. Duval’s volume, 
and every evening, holding his head between both hands, plunged 
into the reading of it. 

While he was studying equinus, varus, and valgus, that is to 
say, katastrephopody, endostrephopody, and exostrephopody (or 
better, the various turnings of the foot downwards, inwards, 
and outwards, with the hypostrephopody and anastrephopody), 
otherwise torsion downwards and upwards, Monsieur Homais, 
with all sorts of arguments, was exhorting the lad at the inn 
to submit to the operation. 

“You will scarcely feel, probably, a slight pain; it is a simple 
prick, like a little blood-letting, less than the extraction of 
certain corns.” 

Hippolyte, reflecting, rolled his stupid eyes. 

“However,” continued the chemist, “it doesn’t concern me. 
It’s for your sake, for pure humanity! I should like to see you, 
my friend, rid of your hideous caudication, together with that 
waddling of the lumbar regions which, whatever you say, must 
considerably interfere with you in the exercise of your calling.” 

Then Homais represented to him how much iollier and brisker 


136 MADAME BOVARY 


he would feel afterwards, and even gave him to understand 
that he would be more likely to please the women; and the 
stable-boy began to smile heavily. Then he attacked him through 
his vanity :— 

“Aren’t you a man? Hang it! what would you have done 
if you had had to go into the army, to go and fight beneath 
the standard? Ah! Hippolyte!” 

And Homais retired, declaring that he could not understand 
this obstinacy, this blindness. in refusing the benefactions of 
science. 

The poor fellow gave way, for it was like a conspiracy. Binet, 
who never interfered’ with other people’s business, Madame 
Lefrancois, Antémise, the neighbours, even the mayor, Mon- 
sieur Tuvache—every one persuaded him, lectured him, shamed 
him; but what finally decided him was that it would cost him 
nothing. Bovary even undertook to provide the machine for 
the operation. This generosity was an idea of Emma’s, and 
Charles consented to it, thinking in his heart of hearts that 
his wife was an angel. 

So by the advice of the chemist, and after three fresh starts, 
he had a kind of box made by the carpenter, with the aid of 
the locksmith, that weighed about eight pounds, and in which 
iron, wood, sheet-iron, leather, screws, and nuts had not been 
spared. 

But to know which of Hippolyte’s tendons to cut, it was 
necessary first of all to find out what kind of club-foot he had. 

He had a foot forming almost a straight line with the leg, 
which, however, did not prevent it from being turned in, so 
that it was an equinus together with something of a varus, or 
else a slight varus with a strong tendency to equinus. But with 
this equinus, wide in foot like a horse’s hoof, with rugose skin, 
dry tendons, and large toes, on which the black nails looked 
as if made of iron, the club-foot ran about like a deer from 
morn till night. He was constantly to be seen on the Place, 
jumping round the carts, thrusting his limping foot forwards. 
He seemed even stronger on that leg than the other. By dint 
of hard service it had acquired, as it were, moral qualities of 
patience and energy; and when he was given some heavy 
work, he stood on it in preference to its fellow. 

Now, as it was an equinus, it was necessary to cut the tendo 
Achillis, and, if need were, the anterior tibial muscle could be 
seen to afterwards for getting rid of the varus; for the doctor 
did not dare to risk both operations at once; he was even 
trembling already for fear of injuring some important region 
that he did not know. 


MADAME BOVARY As? 


Neither Ambrose Paré, applying for the first time since 
Celsus, after an interval of fifteen centuries, a ligature to an 
artery, nor Dupuytren, about to open an abcess in the brain, 
nor Gensoul when he first took away the superior maxilla, had 
hearts that trembled, hands that shook, minds so strained as 
Monsieur Bovary when he approached Hippolyte, his tenotome 
between his fingers. And as at hospitals, near by on a table 
lay a heap of lint, with waxed thread, many bandages—a pyramid 
of bandages—every bandage to be found at the druggist’s. It 
was Monsieur Homais who since morning had been organising 
all these preparations, as much to dazzle the multitude as to keep 
up his illusions. Charles pierced the skin; a dry crackling was 
heard. The tendon was cut, the operation over. Hippolyte 
could not get over his surprise, but bent over Bovary’s hands to 
cover them with kisses. 

“Come, be calm,” said the druggist; “later on you will show 
your gratitude to your benefactor.” 

And he went down to tell the result to five or six inquirers 
who were waiting in the yard, and who fancied that Hippolyte 
would reappear walking properly. Then Charles, having buckled 
his patient into the machine, went home, where Emma, all anx- 
iety, awaited him at the door. She threw herself on his ,neck; 
they sat down to table; he ate much, and at dessert he even 
wanted to take a cup of coffee, a luxury he only permitted him- 
self on Sundays when there was company. 

The evening was charming, full of prattle, of dreams to- 

gether. They talked about their future fortune, of the im- 
provements to be made in their house; he saw people’s estima= 
tion of him growing, his comforts increasing, his wife always 
loving him; and she was happy to refresh herself with a new 
sentiment, healthier, better, to feel at last some tenderness for 
this poor fellow who adored her. The thought of Rodolphe for 
one moment passed through her mind, but her eyes turned again 
to Charles; she even noticed with surprise that he had not bad 
teeth. 
_ They were in bed when Monsieur Homais, in spite of the 
servant, suddenly entered the room, holding in his hand a sheet 
of paper just written. It was the paragraph he intended for 
the “Fanal de Rouen.” He brought it them to read. 

“Read it yourself,” said Bovary. 

He read— 

“Yespite the prejudices that still invest a part of the face 
of Europe like a net, the light nevertheless begins to penetrate 
our country places. Thus on Tuesday our little town of Yon- 
ville found itself the scene of a surgical operation which is at 


138 MADAME BOVARY 


the same time an act of loftiest philanthropy. Monsieur Bovary, 
one of our most distinguished practitioners——’ ” 

“Oh, that is too much! too much!” said Charles, choking with 
emotion. 

“No, no! not at all! What next!” 

al Performed an operation on a club-footed man.’ I have 
not used the scientific term, because you know in a newspaper 
every one would not perhaps understand. The masses must——” 

“No doubt,” said Bovary; “go on!” 

“T proceed,” said the chemist. “ ‘Monsieur Bovary, one of our 
most distinguished practitioners, performed an operation on a 
club-footed man called Hippolyte Tautain, stable-man for the 
last twenty-five years at the hotel of the “Lion d’Or,” kept by 
Widow Lefrangois, at the Place d’Armes. The novelty of the 
attempt, and the interest incident to the subject, had attracted 
such a concourse of persons that there was a veritable obstruc- 
tion on the threshold of the establishment. The operation, more- 
over, was performed as if by magic, and barely a few drops of 
blood appeared on the skin, as though to say that the rebellious 
tendon had at last given way beneath the efforts of art. The 
patient, strangely enough—we affirm it as an eye-witness—com- 
plained of no pain. His condition up to the present time leaves 
nothing to be desired. Everything tends to show that his con- 
valescence will be brief; and who knows even if at our next 
village festivity we shall not see our good Hippolyte figuring in 
the bacchic dance in the midst of a chorus of joyous boon- 
companions, and thus proving to all eyes by his verve and his 
capers his complete cure? Honour, then, to the generous sa- 
vants! Honour to those indefatigable spirits who consecrate 
their vigils to the amelioration or to the alleviation of their kind! 
Honour, thrice honour! Is it not time to cry that the blind 
shall see, the deaf hear, the lame walk? But that which fanati- 
cism formerly promised to its elect, science now accomplishes 
for all men. We shall keep our readers informed as to the suc- 
cessive phases of this remarkable cure.’” 

This did not prevent Mére Lefrancois from coming five days 
after, scared, and crying out— 

“Help! he is dying! I am going crazy!” 

Charles rushed to the “Lion d’Or,” and the chemist, who caught 
sight of him passing along the Place hatless, abandoned his 
shop. He appeared himself breathless, red, anxious, and asking 
every one who was going up the stairs— 

“Why, what’s the matter with our interesting strephopode?” © 
«The strephopode was writhing in hideous convulsions, so 
that the machine in which his leg was enclosed was knocked 
against the wall enough to break it. 





MADAME BOVARY 139 


With many precautions, in order not to disturb the position 
of the limb, the box was removed, and an awful sight presented 
itself. The outlines of the foot disappeared in such a swelling 
that the entire skin seemed about to burst, and it was covered 
with ecchymosis, caused by the famous machine. Hippolyte 
had already complained of suffering from it. No attention had 
been paid to him; they had to acknowledge that he had not been 
altogether wrong, and he was freed for a few hours. But hardly 
had the cedema gone down to some extent, than the two savants 
thought fit to put back the limb in the apparatus, strapping it 
tighter to hasten matters. At last, three days after, Hippolyte 
being unable to endure it any longer, they once more removed 
the machine, and were much surprised at the result they saw. 
The livid tumefaction spread over the leg, with blisters here and 
there, whence there oozed a black liquid. Matters were taking a 
serious turn. Hippolyte began to worry himself, and Meére 
Lefrancois had him installed in the little room near the kitchen, 
so that he might at least have some distraction. 

But the tax-collector, who dined there every day, complained 
bitterly of such companionship. Then Hippolyte was removed 
to the billiard-room. He lay there moaning under his heavy 
coverings, pale, with long beard, sunken eyes, and from time to 
time turning his perspiring head on the dirty pillow, where the 
flies alighted. Madame Bovary went to see him. She brought 
him linen for his poultices; she comforted, and encouraged him. 
Besides, he did not want for company, especially on market-days, 
when the peasants were knocking about the billiard-balls round 
him, fenced with the cues, smoked, drank, sang, and brawled. 

“How are you?” they said, clapping him on the shoulder. 
“Ah! you’re not up to much, it seems, but it’s your own fault. 
You should do this! do that!” And then they told him stories 
of people who had all been cured by other remedies than his. 
Then by way of consolation they added— 

“You give way too much! Get up! You coddle yourself like 
a king! All the same, old chap, you don’t smell nice!” 

Gangrene, in fact, was spreading more and more. Bovary 
himself turned sick at it. He came every hour, every moment. 
Hippolyte looked at him with eyes full of terror, sobbing— 

“When shall I get well? Oh, save me! How unfortunate I 
am! How unfortunate I am!” 

And the doctor left, always recommending him to diet him- 
self. 

“Don’t listen to him, my lad,” said Mere Lefrangois. “Haven’t 
‘they tortured you enough already? You'll grow still weaker. 
Here! swallow this.” 


a0 MADAME BOVARY 


And she gave him some good beef-tea, a slice of mutton, a 
piece of bacon, and sometimes small glasses of brandy, that he 
had not the strength to put to his lips. 

Abbé Bournisien, hearing that he was growing worse, asked 
to see him. He began by pitying his sufferings, declaring at the 
same time that he ought to rejoice at them since it was the will 
of the Lord, and take advantage of the occasion to reconcile 
himself to Heaven. 

“For,” said the ecclesiastic in a paternal tone, “you rather 
neglected your duties; you were rarely seen at divine worship. 
How many years is it since you approached the holy table? 
I understand that your work, that the whirl of the world may 
have kept you from care for your salvation. But now is the 
time to reflect. Yet don’t despair. I have known great sinners, 
who, about to appear before God (you are not yet at this point 
I know), had implored His mercy, and who certainly died in 
the best frame of mind. Let us hope that, like them, you will 
set us a good example. Thus, as a precaution, what is to prevent 
you from saying morning and evening a ‘Hail Mary, full of 
grace, and ‘Our Father which art in heaven’? Yes, do that, 
for my sake, to oblige me. That won’t cost you anything. Will 
you promise me?” 

The poor devil promised. The curé came back day after 
day. He chatted with the landlady, and even told anecdotes 
interspersed with jokes and puns that Hippolyte did not under- 
stand. Then, as soon as he could, he fell back upon matters of 
religion, putting on an appropriate expression of face. 

His zeal seemed successful, for the club-foot soon manifested 
a desire to go on a pilgrimage to Bon-Secours if he were 
cured; to which Monsieur Bournisien replied that he saw no 
objection; two precautions were better than one; it was no 
risk anyhow. 

The druggist was indignant at what he called the manceuvres 
of the priest; they were prejudicial, he said, to Hippolyte’s con- 
valescence, and he kept repeating to Madame Lefrancois, “Leave 
him alone! leave him alone! You perturb his morals with your 
mysticism.” 

But the good woman would no longer listen to him; he was 
the cause of it all. From a spirit of contradiction she hung up 
near the bedside of the patient a basin filled with holy-water and 
a branch of box. 

Religion, however, seemed no more able to succour him than 
surgery, and the invincible gangrene still spread from the ex- 
tremities towards the stomach. It was all very well to vary the 
potions and change the poultices; the muscles each day rotted 


MADAME BOVARY 141 


more and more; and at last Charles replied by an affirmative 
nod of the head when Mére Lefrancois asked him if she could 
not, as a forlorn hope, send for Monsieur Canivet of Neufchatel, 
who was a celebrity. 

A doctor of medicine, fifty years of age, enjoying a good 
position and self-possessed, Charles’s colleague did not refrain 
from laughing disdainfully when he had uncovered the leg, 
mortified to the knee. Then having flatly declared that it must 
be amputated, he went off to the chemist’s to rail at the asses who 
could have reduced a poor man to such a state. Shaking Mon- 
sieur Homais by the button of his coat, he shouted out in the 
shop— 

“These are the inventions of Paris! These are the ideas of 
those gentry of the capital! It is like strabismus, chloroform, 
lithotrity, a heap of monstrosities that the Government ought 
to prohibit. But they want to do the clever, and they cram you 
with remedies without troubling about the consequences. We 
are not so clever, not we! We are not savants, coxcombs, 
fops! We are practitioners; we cure people, and we should not 
dream of operating on any one who is in perfect health. 
Straighten club-feet! As if one could straighten club-feet! 
It is as if one wished, for example, to make a hunchback 
straight!” 

Homais suffered as he listened to this discourse, and he 
concealed his discomfort beneath a courtier’s smile; for he 
needed to humour Monsieur Canivet, whose prescriptions some- 
times came as far as Yonville. So he did not take up the 
defence of Bovary; he did not even make a single remark, and, 
renouncing his principles, he sacrificed his dignity to the more 
serious interests of his business. 

This amputation of the thigh by Doctor Canivet was a great 
event in the village. On that day all the inhabitants got up 
earlier, and the Grande Rue, although full of people, had scme- 
thing lugubrious about it, as if an execution had been expected. 
At the grocers they discussed Hippolyte’s illness; the shops did 
no business, and Madame Tuvache, the mayor’s wife, did not 
stir from her window, such was her impatience to see the oper- 
ator arrive. 

He came in his gig, which he drove himself. But the springs 
of the right side having at length given way beneath the weight 
of his corpulence, it happened that the carriage as it rolled along 
leaned over a little, and on the other cushion near him could be 
seen a large box covered in red sheep-leather, whose three brass 
clasps shone grandly. 

After he had entered like a whirlwind the porch of the “Lion 


142 MADAME BOVARY 


d’Or,” the doctor, shouting very loud, ordered them to unharness 
his horse. Then he went into the stable to see that he was eat- 
ing his oats all right; for on arriving at a patient’s he first of 
all looked after his mare and his gig. People even said about 
this—— 

“Ah! Monsieur Canivet’s a character!” 

And he was the more esteemed for this imperturbable coolness. 
The universe to the last man might have died, and he would not 
have missed the smallest of his habits. 

Homais presented himself. 

“T count on you,” said the doctor. “Are we ready? Come 
along!” 

But the druggist, turning red, confessed that he was too sen- 
sitive to assist at such an operation. 

“When one is a simple spectator,” he said, “the imagination, 
you know, is impressed. And then I have such a nervous 
system !” 

“Pshaw!’ interrupted Canivet; “on the contrary, you seem 
to me inclined to apoplexy. Besides, that doesn’t astonish me, 
for you chemist fellows are always poking about your kitchens, 
which must end by spoiling your constitutions. Now just look 
at me. I get up every day at four o’clock; I shave with cold 
water (and am never cold). I don’t wear flannels, and I never 
catch cold; my carcass is good enough! I live now in one way, 
now in another, like a philosopher, taking pot-luck; that is why 
I am not squeamish like you, and it is as indifferent to me to 
carve a Christian as the first fowl that turns up. Then, per- 
haps, you will say, habit! habit!” 

Then, without any consideration for Hippolyte, who was 
sweating with agony between his sheets, these gentlemen entered 
{nto a conversation, in which the druggist compared the coolness 
of a surgeon to that of a general; and this comparison was 
pleasing to Canivet, who launched out on the exigencies of his 
art. He looked upon it as a sacred office, although the ordinary 
practitioners dishonoured it. At last, coming back to the patient, 
he examined the bandages brought by Homais, the same that 
had appeared for the club-foot, and asked for some one to hold 
the limb for him. Lestiboudois was sent for, and Monsieur 
Canivet having turned up his sleeves, passed into the billiard- 
room, while the druggist stayed with Artémise and the landlady, 
both whiter than their aprons, and with ears strained towards 
the door. 

Bovary during this time did not dare to stir from his house. 

He kept downstairs in the sitting-room by the side of the 
fireless chimney, his chin on his breast, his hands clasped, his 


MADAME BOVARY 143 


eyes staring. “What a mishap!” he thought, “what a mishap!” 
Perhaps, after all, he had made some slip. He thought it over, 
but could hit upon nothing. But the most famous surgeons also 
made mistakes; and that is what no one would ever believe! 
People, on the contrary, would laugh, jeer! It would spread as 
far as Forges, as Neufchatel, as Rouen, everywhere! Who could 
say if his colleagues would not write against him. Polemics 
would ensue; he would have to answer in the papers. Hippolyte 
might even prosecute him. He saw himself dishonoured, ruined, 
lost; and his imagination, assailed by a world of hypotheses, 
tossed amongst them like an empty cask borne by the sea and 
floating upon the waves. 

Emma, opposite, watched him; she did not share his humilia- 
tion; she felt another—that of having supposed such a man 
was worth anything. As if twenty times already she had not 
sufficiently perceived his mediocrity. 

Charles was walking up and down the room; his boots creaked 
on the floor. 

“Sit down,” she said; “you fidget me.” 

He sat down again. 

How was it that she—she, who was so intelligent—could have 
allowed herself to be deceived again? and through what de- 
plorable madness had she thus ruined her life by continual 
sacrifices? She recalled all her instincts of luxury, all the pri- 
vations of her soul, the sordidness of marriage, of the house- 
hold, her dream sinking into the mire like wounded swallows; 
all that she had longed for, all that she had denied herself, 
all that she might have had! And for what? for what? 

In the midst of the silence that hung over the village a heart- 
rending cry rose on the air. Bovary turned white to fainting. 
She knit her brows with a nervous gesture, then went on. And 
it was for him, for this creature, for this man, who understood 
nothing, who felt nothing! For he was there quite quiet, not 
even suspecting that the ridicule of his name would henceforth 
sully hers as well as his. She had made efforts to love him, and 
she had repented with tears for having yielded to another! 

“But it was perhaps a valgus!” suddenly exclaimed Bovary, 
who was meditating. 

At the unexpected shock of this phrase falling on her thought 
like a leaden bullet on a silver plate, Emma, shuddering, raised 
her head in order to find out what he meant to say; and they 
looked at the other in silence, almost amazed to see each other, 
so far sundered were they by their inner thoughts. Charles 
gazed at her with the dull look of a drunken man, while he 
listened motionless to the last cries of the sufferer. that followed 


144 ~ MADAME BOVARY 


each other in long-drawn modulations, broken by sharp spasms 
like the far-off howling of some beast being slaughtered. Emma 
bit her wan lips, and rolling between her fingers a piece of coral 
that she had broken, fixed on Charles the burning glance of her 
eyes like two arrows of fire about to dart forth. Everything 
in him irritated her now; his face, his dress, what he did not 
say, his whole person, his existence, in fine. She repented of her 
past virtue as of a crime, and what still remained of it crumbled 
away beneath the furious blows of her pride. She revelled in 
all the evil ironies of triumphant adultery. The memory of her 
lover came back to her with dazzling attractions; she threw 
her whole soul into it, borne away towards this image with a 
fresh enthusiasm; and Charles seemed to her as much removed 
from her life, as absent forever, as impossible and annihilated, 
as if he had been about to die and were passing under her 
eyes. 

There was a sound of steps on the pavement. Charles looked 
up, and through the lowered blinds he saw at the corner of the 
market in the broad sunshine Dr. Canivet, who was wiping his 
brow with his handkerchief. Homais, behind him, was carrying 
a large red box in his hand, and both were going towards the 
chemist’s. 

Then with a feeling of sudden tenderness and discouragement 
Charles turned to his wife saying to her— 

“Oh, kiss me, my own!” 

“Leave me!” she said, red with anger. 

“What is the matter?” he asked, stupefied. “Be calm; com- 
pose yourself. You know well enough that I love you. Come!” 

“Enough!” she cried with a terrible look. 

And escaping from the room, Emma closed the door so vio- 
lently that the barometer fell from the wall and smashed on the 
floor. 

Charles sank back into his arm-chair overwhelmed, trying 
to discover what could be wrong with her, fancying some 
nervous illness, weeping, and vaguely feeling something fatal 
and incomprehensible whirling round him. | 

When Rodolphe came to the garden that evening, he found 
his mistress waiting for him at the foot of the steps on the 
lowest stair. They threw their arms round one another, and 
all their rancour melted like snow beneath the warmth of that 
kiss. 


MADAME BOVARY 145 


XII 


"THEY began to love one another again. Often, even in the 

middle of the day, Emma suddenly wrote to him, then from 
the window made a sign to Justin, who, taking his apron off, 
quickly ran to La Huchette. Rodolphe would come; she had 
sent for him to tell him that she was bored, that her husband 
was odious, her life frightful. 

“But what can I do?” he cried one day inipatiently. 

“Ah! if you would——” 

She was sitting on the floor between his knees, her hair 
loose, her look lost. 

“Why, what?” said Rodolphe. 

She sighed. 

“We would go and live elsewhere—somewhere !” 

“You are really mad!” he said laughing. “How could thar: 
be possible?” 

She returned to the subject; he pretended not to understand, 
and turned the conversation. 

What he did not understand was all this worry about so sim- 
ple an affair as love. She had a motive, a reason, and, as it 
were, a pendant to her affection. 

Her tenderness, in fact, grew each day with her repulsion 
to her husband. The more she gave up herself to the one, 
the more she loathed the other. Never had Charles seemed 
to her so disagreeable, to have such stodgy fingers, such 
vulgar ways, to be so dull as when they found themselves 
together after her meeting with Rodolphe. Then, while play- 
ing the spouse and virtue, she was burning at the thought of 
that head whose black hair fell in a curl over the sunburnt 
brow, of that form at once so strong and elegant, of that man, 
in a word, who had such experience in his reasoning, such 
passion m his desires. It was for him that she filed her nai!s 
with the care of a chaser, and that there was never enough 
cold-cream for her skin, nor of patchouli for her handkerchiefs. 
She loaded herself with bracelets, rings, and necklaces. When 
he was coming she filled the two large blue glass vases with 
roses, and prepared her room and her person like a courtesan 
expecting a prince. The servant had to be constantly washing 
linen, and all day Félicité did not stir from the kitchen, where 
little Justin, who often kept her company, watched her at work. 

With his elbows on the fong board on which she was ironing, 
he greedily watched all these women’s clothes spread out about 
him, the dimitv pettiy oats, the fichus, the coilars, and the drawers 


146 MADAME BOVARY 


with running strings, wide at the hips and growing narrower 
below. 

“What is that for?” asked the young fellow, passing his hand 
over the crinoline or the hooks and eyes. 

“Why, haven’t you ever seen anything?” Félicité answered 
laughing. “As if your mistress, Madame Homais, didn’t wear 
the same.” 

“Oh, I daresay! Madame Homais!” And he added with a 
meditative air, “As if she were a lady like madame!” 

But Félicité grew impatient of seeing him hanging round 
her. She was six years older than he, and Théodore, Monsieur 
Guillaumin’s servant, was beginning to pay court to her. 

“Let me alone,” she said, moving her pot of starch. “You’d 
better be off and pound almonds; you are always dangling 
about women. Before you meddle with such things, bad boy, 
wait till you’ve got a beard to your chin.” 

“Oh, don’t be cross! Ill go and clean her boots.” 

And he at once took down from the shelf Emma’s boots, 
all coated with mud, the mud of the rendezvous, that crum- 
bled into powder beneath his fingers, and that he watched 
as it gently rose in a ray of sunlight. 

“How afraid you are of spoiling them!” said the servant, 
who wasn’t so particular when she cleaned them herself, be- 
cause as soon as the stuff of the boots was no longer fresh 
madame handed them over to her. 

Emma had a number in her cupboard that she squandered 
one after the other, without Charles allowing himself the slight- 
est observation. So also he disbursed three hundred francs 
for a wooden leg that she thought proper to make a present 
of to Hippolyte. Its top was covered with cork, and it had 
spring joints, a complicated mechanism, covered over by black 
trowsers ending in a patent-leather boot. But Hippolyte, not 
daring to use such a handsome leg every day, begged Madame 
Bovary to get him another more convenient one. The doctor, 
of course, had again to defray the expense of this purchase. 

So little by little the stable-man took up his work again. 
One saw him running about the village as before, and when 
Charles heard from afar the sharp noise of the wooden leg, 
he at once went in another direction. 

It was Monsieur Lheureux, the shopkeeper, who had under- 
taken the order; this provided him with an excuse for visiting 
Emma. He chatted with her about the new goods from Paris, 
about a thousand feminine trifles, made himself very obliging, 
and never asked for his money. Emma yielded to this lazy mode 
of satisfying all her caprices. Thus she wanted to have a 


MADAME BOVARY 147 


very handsome riding-whip that was at an umbrella-maker’s 
at Rouen to give to Rodolphe. The week after Monsieur 
Lheureux placed it on her table. 

But the next day he called on her with a bill for two hun- 
dred and seventy francs, not counting the centimes. Emma 
was much embarrassed; all the drawers of the writing-table 
were empty; they owed over a fortnight’s wages to Lestibou- 
dois, two quarters to the servant, for any quantity of other 
things, and Bovary was impatiently expecting Monseiur Dero- 
zeray’s account, which he was in the habit of paying every 
year about Midsummer. 

She succeeded at first in putting off Lheureux. At last he 
lost patience; he was being sued; his capital was out, and 
unless he got some in he should be forced to take back all the 
goods she had received. 

“Oh, very well, take them!” said Emma. 

“T was only joking,” he replied; “the only thing I regret is 
the whip. My word! I'll ask monsieur to return it to me.” 

“No, no!” she said. 

“Ah! Ive got you!” thought Lheureux. 

And, certain of his discovery, he went out repeating to 
himself in an undertone, and with his usual low whistle— 

“Good! we shall see! we shall see!” 

She was thinking how to get out of this when the servant 
coming in put on the mantelpiece a small roll of blue paper 
“from Monsieur Derozeray’s.’” Emma pounced upon and 
opened it. It contained fifteen napoleons; it was the account. 
She heard Charles on the stairs; threw the gold to the back 
of her drawer, and took out the key. 

Three days after Lheureux reappeared. 

“T have an arrangement to suggest to you,” he said. “If, 
instead of the sum agreed on, you would take——” 

“Here it is,” she said placing fourteen napoleons in his hand. 

The tradesman was dumbfoundered. Then, to conceal his 
disappointment, he was profuse in apologies and proffers of 
service, all of which Emma declined; then she remained a 
few moments fingering in the pocket of her apron the two five- 
franc pieces that he had given her in change. She promised 
herself she would economise in order to pay back later on. 
“Pshaw!” she thought, “he won’t think about it again.” 


Besides the riding-whip with its silver-gilt handle, Rodolphe 
had received a seal with the motto Amor nel cor; furthermore, 
a scarf for a muffler, and, finally, a cigar-case exactly like the 
Viscount’s, that Charles had formerly nicked up in the road, 


148 MADAME BOVARY 


and that Emma had kept. These presents, however, humiliated 
him; he refused several; she insisted, and he ended by obey- 
ing, thinking her tyrannical and over-exacting. 

Then she had strange ideas. 

“When midnight strikes,” she said, “you must think of me.” 

And if he confessed that he had not thought of her, there 
were floods of reproaches that always ended with the eternal 
question— 

“Do you love me?” 

“Why, of course I love you,” he answered. 

“A great deal?” 

“Certainly !” 

“You haven’t loved any others?” 

“Did you think you’d got a virgin?” he exclaimed laughing. 

Emma cried, and he tried to console her, adorning his protes- 
rations with puns. 

“Oh,” she went on, “I love you! I love you so that I could 
not live without you, do you see? There are times when I’ 
long to see you again, when I am torn by all the anger of love. 
I ask myself, Where is he? Perhaps he is talking to other 
women. They smile upon him; he approaches. Oh no; no 
one else pleases you. There are some more beautiful, but I 
love you best. I know how to love best. I am your servant, 
your concubine! You are my king, my idol! You are good, 
you are beautiful, you are clever, you are strong!” 

He had so often heard these things said that they did not 
strike him as original. Emma was like all his mistresses; and 
the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, 
laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has always the 
same forms and the same language. He did not distinguish, 
this man of so much experience, the difference of sentiment be- 
neath the saneness of expression. Because lips libertine and 
venal had murmured such words to him, he believed but little 
in the candour of hérs; exaggerated speeches hiding mediocre 
affections must be discounted; as if the fulness of the sou? 
did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest metaphors, since no 
one can ever give the exact measure of his needs, nor of his 
conceptions, nor of his sorrows; and since human speech is 
like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to 
make bears dance when we long to move the stars. 

But with that superior critical judgment that belongs to him 
who, in no matter what circumstance, holds back, Rodolphe saw 
other delights to be got out of this love. He thought all | 
modesty in the way. He treated her quite sans facon. He 
made of her something supple and corrupt. Hers was an 


MADAME BOVARY 149 


idiotic sort of attachment, full of admiration for him, of volup- 
tuousness for her, a beatitude that benumbed her; her soul sank 
into this drunkenness, shrivelled up, drowned in it, like Clarence 
in his butt of Malmsey. 

By the mere effect of her love Madame Bovary’s manners 
changed. Her looks grew bolder, her speech more free; she 
even committed the impropriety of walking out with Monsieur 
Rodolphe, a cigarette in her mouth, “as if to defy the people.” 
At last, those who still doubted doubted no longer when one 
day they saw her getting out of the “Hirondelle,” her waist 
squeezed into a waistcoat like a man; and Madame Bovary 
senior, who, after a fearful scene with her husband, had 
taken refuge at her son’s, who was not the least scandalised of 
the women-folk. Many other things displeased her. First, 
Charles had not attended to her advice about the forbidding of 
novels; then the “ways of the house” annoyed her; she allowed 
herself to make some remarks, and there were quarrels, especially 
one on account of Feélicité. 

Madam Bovary senior, the evening before, passing along the 
passage, had surprised her in company of a man—a man with 
a brown collar, about forty years old, who, at the sound of her 
step, had quickly escaped through the kitchen. Then Emma 
began to laugh, but the good lady grew angry, declaring that 
unless morals were to be laughed at one ought to look after 
those of one’s servants. 

“Where were you brought up?” asked the daughter-in-law, 
with so impertinent a look that Madame Bovary asked her 
if she were not perhaps defending her own case. 

“Leave the room!” said the young woman, springing up with 
a bound. 

“Emma! Mamma!” cried Charles, trying to reconcile them. 

But both had fled in their exasperation. Emma was stamping 
her feet as she repeated— 

“Oh! what manners! What a peasant!” 

He ran to his mother; she was beside herself. She stam- 
nered— 

“She is an insolent, giddy-headed thing, or perhaps worse!” 

And she was for leaving at once if the other did not apologise. 

So Charles went aback again to his wife and implored her 
0 give way; he knelt to her; she ended by saying— 

“Very well! Ill go to her.” 

And in fact she held out her hand to her mother-in-law with 
the dignity of a marchioness as she said— 

“Excuse me, madame.’ 

Then, having gone up again to her room, she threw herself 


1”? 


150 MADAME BOVARY 


flat on her bed and cried there like a child, her face buried in 
the pillow. 

She and Rodolphe had agreed that in the event of anything 
extraordinary occurring, she should fasten a small piece of 
white paper to the blind, so that if by chance he happened te 
be in Yonville, he could hurry to the lane behind the house. 
Emma made the signal; she had been waiting three-quarters of 
an hour when she suddenly caught sight of Rodolphe at the 
corner of the market. She felt tempted to open the window 
and call him, but he had already disappeared. She fell back 
in despair. 

Soon, however, it seemed to her that someone was walking 
on the pavement. It was he, no doubt. She went downstairs, 
crossed the yard. He was there outside. She threw herself 
into his arms. 

“Do take care!” he said. 

“Ah! if you knew!” she replied. 

And she began telling him everything, hurriedly, disjointedly, 
exaggerating the facts, inventing many, and so prodigal of 
parentheses that he understood nothing of it. 

“Come, my poor angel, courage! Be comforted! be pa- 
tient !” 

“But I have been patient; I have suffered for four years. A 
love like ours ought to show itself in the face of heaven. 
They torture me! I can bear it no longer! Save me!” 

She clung to Rodolphe. Her eyes, full of tears, flashed like 
flames beneath a wave; her breast heaved; he had never loved 
her so much, so that he lost his head and said— 

“What is it? What do you wish?” 

“Take me away,” she cried, “carry me off! Oh, I pray you!” | 

And she threw herself upon his mouth, as if to seize there 
the unexpected consent if breathed forth in a kiss. 

“But——” Rodolphe resumed. 

“What?” 

“Your little girl!” 

She reflected a few moments, then replied— 

“We will take her! It can’t be helped!” 

“What a woman!” he said to himself, watching her as she 
went. For she had run into the garden. Some one was call- 
ing her. 

On the following days Madame Bovary senior was much 
surprised at the change in her daughter-in-law. Emma, in 
fact, was showing herself more docile, and even carried her 
deference so far as to ask for a recipe for pickling gherkins. 

Was it the better to deceive them both? Or did she wish 





MADAME BOVARY 151 


by a sort of voluptuous stoicism to feel the more profoundly 
the bitterness of the things she was about to leave? 

But she paid no heed to them; on the contrary, she lived as 
lost in the anticipated delight of her coming happiness. It was 
an eternal subject for conversation with Rodolphe. She leant 
on his shoulder murmuring— 

“Ah! when we are in the mail-coach! Do you think about 
it? Can it be? It seems to me that the moment I feel the 
carriage start, it will be as if we were rising in a balloon, as 
if we were setting out for the clouds. Do you know that I 
count the hours. And you?” 

Never had Madame Bovary been so beautiful as at this 
period; she had that indefinable beauty that results from joy, 
from enthusiasm, from success, and that is only the harmony 
of temperament with circumstances. Her desires, her sorrows, 
the experience of pleasure, and her ever-young illusions, that 
had, as soil and rain and winds and the sun make flowers grow, 
gradually developed her, and she at length blossomed forth 
in all the plenitude of her nature. Her eyelids seemed chiselled 
expressly for her tong amorous looks in which the pupil dis- 
appeared, while a strong inspiration expanded her delicate nos- 
trils and raised the fleshy corner of her lips, shaded in the 
light by a little black down. One would have thought that 
an artist apt in conception had arranged the curls of hair upon 
her neck; they fell in a thick mass, negligently, and with the 
changing chances of their adultery, that unbound them every 
day. Her voice now took more mellow inflections, her figure 
also; something subtle and penetrating escaped even from 
the folds of her gown and from the line of her foot. Charles, 
as when they were first married, thought her delicious and 
quite irresistible. 

When he came home in the middle of the night, he did not 
dare to wake her. The porcelain night-light threw a round 
trembling gleam upon the ceiling, and the drawn curtains of 
the little cot formed as it were a white hut standing out in the 
shade, and by the bedside Charles looked at them. He seemed 
to hear the light breathing of his child. She would grow big 
now; every season would bring rapid progress. He already 
saw her coming from school as the day drew in, laughing, with 
ink-stains on her jacket, and carrying her basket on her arm. 
Then she would have to be sent to a boarding-school; that 
would cost much; how was it to be done? Then he reflected. 
He thought of hiring a small farm in the neighbourhood, that 
he would superintend every morning on his way to his pa- 
tient: -rould save up what he brought in; he would 


152 > MADAME BOVARY 


/put it in the savings-bank. Then he would buy shares some- 
' where, no matter where; besides, his practice would increase: 
he counted upon that, for he wanted Berthe to be well-edu- 
cated, to be accomplished, to learn to play the piano. Ah! 
how pretty she would be later on when she was fifteen, when, 
resembling her mother, she would, like her, wear large straw 
hats in the summer-time; from a distance they would be taken 
for two sisters. He pictured her to himself working in the 
evening by their side beneath the light of the lamp; she would 
embroider him slippers; she would look after the house; she 
would fill all the home with her charm and her gaiety. At 
last, they would think of her marriage; they would find her 
some good young fellow with a steady business; he would 
make her happy; this would last for ever. 

Emma was not asleep; she pretended to be; and while he 
dozed off by her side she awakened to other dreams. 

To the gallop of four horses she was carried away for a 
week towards a new land, whence they would return no more. 
They went on and on, their arms entwined, without a word. 
Often from the top of a mountain there suddenly glimpsed 
some splendid city with domes, and bridges, and ships, forests 
of citron trees, and cathedrals of white marble, on whose 
pointed steeples were storks’ nests. They went at a walking- 
pace because of the great flag-stones, and on the ground there 
were bouquets of flowers, offered you by women dressed in 
red bodices. They heard the chiming of bells, the neighing 
of mules, together with the murmur of guitars and the noise 
of fountains, whose rising spray refreshed heaps of fruit 
arranged like a pyramid at the foot of pale statues that smiled 
beneath playing waters. And then, one night they came to a 
fishing village, where brown nets were drying in the wind 
along the cliffs and in front of the huts. It was there that 
they would stay; they would live in a low, flat-roofed house, 
shaded by a palm-tree, in the heart of a gulf, by the sea. 
They would row in gondolas, swing in hammocks, and their 
existence would be easy and large as their silk gowns, warm 
and star-spangled as the nights they would contemplate. How- 
ever, in the immensity of this future that she conjured up, 
nothing special stood forth; the days, all magnificent, resem- 
bled each other like waves; and it swayed in the horizon, in- 
finite, harmonised, azure, and bathed in sunshine. But the 
child began to cough in her cot or Bovary snored more loudly, 
and Emma did not fali asleep till morning, when the dawn 
whitened the windows, and when little Justin was already 
in the square taking down the shutters of the ch-~* °"*shop. 


MADAME BOVARY 153 


She had sent for Monsieur Lheureux, and had said to him— 
“I want a cloak—a large lined cloak with a deep collar.” 
“You are going on a journey?” he asked. 

“No; but—never mind. I may count on you, may I not, 
and quickly?” 

He bowed. 

“Besides, I shall want,” she went on, “a trunk—not too 
heavy—handy.” 

“Yes, yes, I understand. About three feet by a foot and a 
half, as they are being made just now.” 

“And a travelling bag.” 

“Decidedly,” thought Lheureux, “there’s.a row on here.” 

“And,” said Madame Bovary, taking her watch from her 
belt, “take this; you can pay yourself out of it.” 

But the tradesman cried out that she was wrong; they knew 
one another; did he doubt her? What childishness! 

She insisted, however, on his taking at least the chain, and 
Lheureux had already put it in his pocket and was going, when 
she called him back. 

“You will leave everything at your place. As to the cloak” 
—she seemed to be reflecting—“do not bring it either; you can 
give me the maker’s address, and tell him to have it ready 
for me.” 

It was the next month that they were to run away. She 
was to leave Yonville as if she was going on some business 
to Rouen. Rodolphe would have booked the seats, procured 
the passports, and even have written to Paris in order to 
have the whole mail-coach reserved for them as far as Mar- 
seilles, where they would buy a carriage, and go on thence 
without stopping to Genoa. She would take care to send her 
luggage to Lheureux’, whence it would be taken direct to the 
“Hirondelle,” so that no one would have any suspicion. And in 
all this there never was any allusion to the child. Rodolphe 
avoided speaking of her; perhaps he no longer thought about it. 

He wished to have two more weeks before him to arrange 
some affairs; then at the end of a week he wanted two more; 
then he said he was ill; next he went on a journey. The 
month of August passed, and, after all these delays, they 
decided that it was to be irrevocably fixed for the 4th Sep- 
tember—a Monday. 

At length the Saturday before arrived. 

Rodolphe came in the evening earlier than usual. 

“Everything is ready?” she asked him. 

“Ves,” 


154 MADAME BOVARY 


Then they walked round a garden-bed, and went to sit 
down near the terrace on the kerb-stone of the wall. 

“You are sad,” said Emma. 

“No; why?” 

And yet he looked at her strangely in a tender fashion. 

“Is it because you are going away?” she went on; “because 
you are leaving what is dear to you—your life? Ah! I un- 
derstand. I have nothing in the world! You are all to me; 
so shall I be to you. I will be your people, your country; 
I will tend, I will love you!” 

“How sweet you are!” he said, seizing her in his arms. 

“Really!” she said with a voluptuous laugh. “Do you love 
me? Swear it then!” 

“Do I love you—love you? I adore you, my love!’ 

The moon, full and purple-coloured, was rising right out 
of the earth at the end of the meadow. She rose quickly 
between the branches of the poplars, that hid her here and 
there like a black curtain pierced with holes. Then she ap- 
peared dazzling with whiteness in the empty heavens that 
she lit up, and now sailing more slowly along, let fall upon 
the river a great stain that broke up into an infinity of stars; 
and the silver sheen seemed to writhe through the very depths © 
like a headless serpent covered with luminous scales; it also 
resembled some monster candelabra all along which sparkled 
drops of diamonds running together. The soft night was 
about them; masses of shadow filled the branches. Emma, 
her eyes half closed, breathed in with deep sighs the fresh wind 
that was blowing. They did not speak, lost as they were 
in the rush of their reverie. The tenderness of the old days 
came back to their hearts, full and silent as the flowing river, 
with the softness of the perfume of the syringas, and threw 
across their memories shadows more immense and more 
sombre than those of the still willows that lengthened out 
over the grass. Often some night-animal, hedgehog or weasel, 
setting out on the hunt, disturbed the lovers, or sometimes 
they heard a ripe peach falling all alone from the espalier. 

“Ah! what a lovely night!” said Rodolphe. 

“We shall have others,” replied Emma; and, as if speaking 
to herself. “Yet, it will be good to travel. And yet, why 
should my heart be so heavy? Is it dread of the unknown? 
The effect of habits left? Or rather ? No; it is the excess 
of happiness. How weak I am, am I not? Forgive me!” 

“There is still time!” he cried. “Reflect! perhaps you may 
repent!” 

“Never!” she cried impetuously. And coming closer to 





MADAME BOVARY 155 


him: “What ill could come to me? There is no desert, no 
precipice, no ocean I would not traverse with you. The 
longer we live together the more it will be like an embrace, 
every day closer, more heart to heart. There will be nothing 
to trouble us, no cares, no obstacle. We shall be alone, all 
to ourselves eternally. Oh, speak! Answer me!” 

At regular intervals he answered, “Yes—Yes—” She had 
passed her hands through his hair, and she repeated in a 
childlike voice, despite the big tears which were falling, “Ro- 
dolphe! Rodolphe! Ah! Rodolphe! dear little Rodolphe!” 

Midnight struck. 

“Midnight!” said she. “Come, it is to-morrow. One day 
more!” 

He rose to go; and as if the movement he made had been the 
signal for their flight, Emma said, suddenly assuming a gay air— 

“You have the passports?” 

SV es. 

“You are forgetting nothing?” 

“No: 

“Are you sure?’ 

“Certainly.” 

“Tt is at the Hotel de Provence, is it not, that you will wait 
for me at mid-day?” 

He nodded. 

“Till to-morrow then!” said Emma in a last caress; and 
she watched him go. 

He did not turn round. She ran after him, and, leaning 
over the water’s edge between the bulrushes— 

“To-morrow!” she cried. 

He was already on the other side of the river and walking 
fast across the meadow. 

After a few moments Rodolphe stopped; and when he saw 
her with her white gown gradually fade away in the shade 
like a ghost, he was seized with such a beating of the heart 
that he leant against a tree lest he should fall. 

“What an imbecile I am!” he said with a fearful oath. “No 
matter! She was a pretty mistress!” 

And immediately Emma’s beauty, with all the pleasures of 
their love, came back to him. For a moment he softened; 
then he rebelled against her. 

“For, after all,” he exclaimed, gesticulating, “I can’t exile 
_myself—have a child on my hands.” 

He was saying these things to give himself firmness. 

“And besides, the worry, the expense! Ah! no, no, no, no! 
| a thousand times no! It would have been too stupid” 


Le, 


156 MADAME BOVARY 


XIII 


N° sooner was Rodolphe at home than he sat down quickly 

at his bureau under the stag’s head that hung as a trophy 
on the wall. But when he had the pen between his fingers, 
he could think of nothing, so that, resting on his elbows, he 
began to reflect. Emma seemed to him to have receded into 
a far-off past, as if the resolution he had taken had suddenly 
placed a distance between them. 

To get back something of her, he fetched from the cupboard 
at the bedside an old Rheims biscuit-box, in which he usually 
kept his letters from women, and from it came an odour of 
dry dust and withered roses. First he saw a handkerchief with 
pale little spots. It was a handkerchief of hers. Once when 
they were walking her nose had bled; he had forgotten it. 
Near it, chipped at all the corners, was a miniature given him 
by Emma: her toilette seemed to him pretentious, and her 
languishing look in the worst possible taste. Then, from look- 
ing at this image and recalling the memory of its original, 
Emma’s features little by little grew confused in his remem- 
brance, as if the living and the painted face, rubbing one 
against the other, had effaced each other. Finally, he read 
some of her letters; they were full of explanations relating 
to their journey, short, technical, and urgent, like business 
notes. He wanted to see the long ones again, those of old 
times. In order to find them at the bottom of the box, Ro- 
dolphe disturbed all the others, and mechanically began rum- 
maging amidst this mass of papers and things, finding pell- 
mell bouquets, garters, a black mask, pins, and hair—hair! dark 
and fair, some even, catching in the hinges of the box, broke 
when it was opened. 

Thus dallying with his souvenirs, he examined the writing 
and the style of the letters, as varied as their orthography. 
They were tender or jovial, facetious, melancholy; there were 
some that asked for love, others that asked for money. A 
word recalled faces to him, certain gestures, the sound of a 
voice; sometimes, however, he remembered nothing at all. 

In fact, these women, rushing at once into his thoughts, 
cramped each other and lessened, as reduced to a uniform level 
»f love that equalised them all. So taking handfuls of the 
mixed-up letters, he amused himSelf for some moments with 
letting them fall in cascades from his right into his left hand. 
At last, bored and weary, Rodolphe took back the box to the 
cupboard, saying to himself, “What a lot of rubbish!” Which 


MADAME BOVARY 3 15? 


summed up his opinion; for pleasures, like schoolboys in a 
school courtyard, had so trampled upon his heart that no green 
thing grew there, and that which passed through it, more heed- 
less than children, did not even, like them, leave a name carved 
upon the wall. 

“Come,” said he, “let’s begin.” 

He wrote— 


“Courage, Emma! courage! I would not bring misery into 
your life.” 


“After all, that’s true,” thought Rodolphe. “I am acting in 
her interest; I am honest.” 


“Have you carefully weighed your resolution? Do you know 
to what an abyss I was dragging you, poor angel? No, you do 
not, do you? You were coming confident and fearless, believ- 
ing in happiness in the future. Ah! unhappy that we are— 
insensate !’ 


Rodolphe stopped here to think of some good cxcuse. 

“If I told her all my fortune is lost? No! Besides, that 
would stop nothing. It would all have to be begun over again 
later on. As if one could make women like that listen to 
reason!” He reflected, then went on— 


“T shall not forget you, oh! believe it; and I shall ever 
have a profound devotion for you; but some day, sooner or 
later, this ardour (such is the fate of human things) would’ 
have grown less, no doubt. Lassitude would have come to 
us, and who knows if I should not even have had the atrocious 
pain of witnessing your remorse, of sharing it myself, since 
I should have been its cause? The mere idea of the grief that 
would come to you tortures me, Emma. Forget me! Why 
did I ever know you? Why were you so beautiful? Is it 
my fault? O my God! No, no! Accuse only fate.” 


“That’s a word that always tells,” he said to himself. 


“Ah, if you had been one of those frivolous women that 
one sees, certainly I might, through egotism, have tried an 
experiment, in that case without danger for you. But that de- 
licious exaltation, at once your charm and your torment, has 
prevented you from understanding, adorable woman that you 
are, the falseness of our future position. Nor had I reflected 


158 MADAME BOVARY 


upon this at first, and I rested in the shade of that ideal happi- 
ness as beneath that of the manchineel tree, without foreseeing 
the consequences.” 


“Perhaps she'll think I’m giving it up from avarice. Ah, 
well! so much the worse; it must be stopped!” 


“The world is cruel, Emma. Wherever we might have gone, 
it would have persecuted us. You would have had to put up 
with indiscreet questions, calumny, contempt, insult perhaps. 
Insult to you! Oh! And I, who would place you on a throne! 
I who bear with me your memory as a talisman! For I am 
going to punish myself by exile for all the ill I have done you. 
I am going away. Whither I know not. I am mad. Adieu! 
Be good always. Preserve the memory of the unfortunate who 
has lost you. Teach my name to your child; let her repeat 
it in her prayers.” 


The wicks of the candles flickered. Rodolphe got up to 
shut the window, and when he had sat down again— 

“T think it’s all right. Ah! and this for fear she should 
come and hunt me up.” 


“T shall be far away when you read these sad lines, for I 
have wished to flee as quickly as possible to shun the tempta- 
tion of seeing you again. No weakness! I shall return, and 
perhaps later on we shall talk together very coldly of our old 
love. Adieu!” 


And there was a last “adieu” divided into two words! 
“A Dieu!” which he thought in very excellent taste. 


“Now how am I to sign?” he said to himself. “‘Yours de- 
votedly?? No! ‘Your friend?’ Yes, that’s it.” 


“Your friend.” 


He re-read his letter. He considered it very good. 

“Poor little woman!” he thought with emotion. “She’ll think 
me harder than a rock. There ought to have been some tears 
on this; but I can’t cry; it isn’t my fault.” Then, having 
emptied some water into a glass, Rodolphe dipped his finger 
into it, and let a big drop fall on the paper, that made a pale 
stain on the ink. Then looking for a seal, he came upon the 
one “Amor nel cor.” 





MADAME BOVARY 159 


“That doesn’t at all fit in with the circumstances. Pshaw! 
never mind!” 

After which he smoked three pipes and went to bed. 

The next day when he was up (at about two o’clock—he had 
slept late), Rodolphe had a basket of apricots picked. He put 
his letter at the bottom under some vine leaves, and at once 
ordered Girard, his ploughman, to take it with care to Madame 
Bovary. He made use of this means for corresponding with 
her, sending according to the season fruits or game. 

“If she asks after me,” he said, “you will tell her that I 
have gone on a journey. You must give the basket to her her- 
self, into her own hands. Get along and take care!” 

Girard put on his new blouse, knotted his handkerchief 
round the apricots, and, walking with great heavy steps in his 
thick iron-bound goloshes, made his way to Yonville. 

Madame Bovary, when he got to her house, was arranging a 
bundle of linen on the kitchen-table with Félicité. 

“Here,” said the ploughboy, “is something for you from 
master.” 

She was seized with apprehension, and as she sought in 
her pocket for some coppers, she looked at the peasant with 
haggard eyes, while he himself looked at her with amazement, 
not understanding how such a present could so move any one. 
At last he went out. Féliciteé remained. She could bear it 
no longer; she ran into the sitting room as if to take the 
apricots there, overturned the basket, tore away the leaves, 
found the letter, opened it, and, as if some fearful fire were 
behind her, Emma flew to her room terrified. 

Charles was there; she saw him; he spoke to her; she 
heard nothing, and she went on quickly up the stairs, breathless, 
distraught, dumb, and ever holding this horrible piece of paper, 
that crackled between her fingers like a plate of sheet-iron. On 
the second floor she stopped before the attic-door, that was 
closed. 

Then she tried to calm herself; she recalled the letter; she 
must finish it; she did not dare to. And where? How? She 
would be seen! “Ah, no! here,” she thought, “I shall be all 
right.” 

Emma pushed open the door and went in. 

The slates threw straight down a heavy heat that gripped 
her temples, stifled her; she dragged herself to the closed gar- 
ret-window. She drew back the bolt, and the dazzling light 
burst in with a leap. 

Opposite, beyond the roofs, stretched the open country till 
it was lost to sight. Down below, underneath her, the village 


160 MADAME BOVARY 


square was empty; the stones of the pavement glittered, the 
weathercocks on the houses were motionless. At the corner 
of the street, from a lower storey, rose a kind of humming 
with strident modulations. It was Binet turning. 

She leant against the embrasure of the window, and re-read 
the letter with angry sneers. But the more she fixed her atten- 
tion upon it, the more confused were her ideas. She saw him 
again, heard him, encircled him with her arms, and the throbs 
of her heart, that beat against her breast like blows of a 
sledge-hammer, grew faster and faster, with uneven intervals. 
She looked about her with the wish that the earth might 
crumble into pieces. Why not end it all? What restrained 
her? She was free. She advanced, looked at the paving- 
stones, saying to herself, “Come! come!” 

The luminous ray that came straight up from below drew 
the weight of her body towards the abyss. It seemed to her 
that the ground of the oscillating square went up the walls, 
and that the floor dipped on end like a tossing boat. She 
was right at the edge, almost hanging, surrounded by vast 
space. The blue of the heavens suffused her, the air was 
whirling in her hollow head; she had but to yield, to fet 
herself be taken; and the humming of the lathe never ceased, 
like an angry voice calling her. 

“Emma! Emma!” cried Charles. 

She stopped. 

“Wherever are you? Come 

The thought that she had just escaped from death almost 
made her faint with terror. She closed her eyes; then she 
shivered at the touch of a hand on her sleeve; it was Feélicité. 

“Master is waiting for you, madame; the soup is on the 
table.” 

And she had to go down to sit at table. 

She tried to eat. The food choked her. Then she unfolded 
her napkin as if to examine the darns, and she really thought 
of applying herself to this work, counting the threads in the 
linen. Suddenly the remembrance of the letter returned to 
her. How had she lost it? Where could she find it? But 
she felt such weariness of spirit that she could not even invent 
a pretext for leaving the table. Then she became a coward; 
she was afraid of Charles; he knew all, that was certain! | 
Indeed he pronounced these words in a strange manner: 

“We are not likely to see Monsieur Rodolphe soon again, 
it seems.” 

“Who told your” she said, shuddering. 

“Who told me!” he replied, rather astonished at her abrupt 


” 
! 





MADAME BOVARY 





tone. “Why, Girard, whom I met just now at the door of 
the Café-Francais. He has gone on a journey, or is to go.” 

She gave a sob. 

“What surprises you in that? He absents himself like that 
from time to time for a change, and, ma foi, I think he’s right, 
when one has a fortune and is a bachelor. Besides, he has 
jolly times, has our friend. He’s a bit of a rake. Monsieur 
Langlois told me——” 

He stopped for propriety’s sake because the servant came in. 
She put back into the basket the apricots scattered on the 
sideboard. Charles, without noticing his wife’s colour, had 
them brought to him, took one, and bit into it. 

“Ah! perfect!’ said he; “just taste!” 

And he handed her the basket, which she put away from her 
gently. 

‘Do just smell! What an odour!” he remarked, passing it 
under her nose several times. 

“T am choking,” she cried, leaping up. But by an effort of 
will the spasm passed; then—— 

“Tt is nothing,” she said, “it is nothing! It is nervousness. Sit 
down and go on eating.” For she dreaded lest he should begin 
questioning her, attending to her, that she should not be left 
alone. 

Charles, to obey her, sat down again, and he spat the stones 
of the apricots into his hands, afterwards putting them on 
his plate. 

Suddenly a blue tilbury passed across the square at a rapid 
trot. Emma uttered a cry and fell back rigid to the ground. 

In fact, Rodolphe, after many reflections, had decided to set 
out for Rouen. Now, as from La Huchette to Buchy there 
is no other way than by Yonville, he had to go through the 
village, and Emma had recognised him by the rays of the lan- 
terns, which like lightning flashed through the twilight. 

The chemist, at the tumult which broke out in the house, ran 
thither. The table with all the plates was upset; sauce, meat, 
knives, the salt, and cruet-stand were strewn over the room; 
Charles was calling for help; Berthe, scared, was crying; and 
Félicité, whose hands trembled, was unlacing her mistress, whose 
whole body shivered convulsively. 

“T’ll run to my laboratory for some aromatic vinegar,” said 
the druggist. 

Then as she opened her eyes on smelling the bottle— 

“T was sure of it,” he remarked; “that would wake any dead 
person for you!” 

“Speak to us,” said Charles; “collect yourself; it is I—your 


MADAME BOVARY 





Charles, who loves you. Do you know me? See! here is 
your little girl! Oh, kiss her!” 

The child stretched out her arms to her mother to cling 
to her neck. But turning away her head, Emma said i a 
broken voice— 

“No, no! no one!” 

She fainted again. They carried her to her bed. She lay 
there stretched at full length, her lips apart, her eyelids closed, 
her hands open, motionless, and white as a waxen image. 
Two streams of tears flowed from her eyes and fell slowly 
upon the pillow. 

Charles, standing up, was at the back of the alcove, and the 
chemist, near him, maintained that meditative silence that is 
becoming on the serious occasions of life. 

“Do not be uneasy,” he said, touching his elbow; “I think 
the paroxysm is past.” 

“Yes, she is resting a little now,’ answered Charles, watch- 
ing her sleep. “Poor girl! poor girl! She has gone off now!” 

Then Homais asked how the accident had come about. 
Charles answered that she had been taken ill suddenly while 
she was eating some apricots. 

“Extraordinary!” continued the chemist. “But it might be 
that the apricots had brought on the syncope. Some natures 
are so sensitive to certain smells; and it would even be a very 
fine question to study both in its pathological and physiological 
relation. The priests know the importance of it, they who have 
introduced aromatics into all their ceremonies. It is to stupefy 
the senses and to bring on ecstasies,—a thing, moreover, very 
easy in persons of the weaker sex, who are more delicate than 
the other. Some are cited who faint at the smell of burnt 
hartshorn, of new bread 

“Take care; you’ll wake her!” said Bovary in a low voice. 

“And not only,” the druggist went on, “are human beings 
subject to such anomalies, but animals also. Thus you are 
not ignorant of the singularly aphrodisiac effect produced by 
the Nepeta cataria, vulgarly called cat-mint, on the feline race; 
and, on the other hand, to’ quote an example whose authenticity 
I can answer for, Bridaux (one of my old comrades, at present 
established in the Rue Malpalu) possesses a dog that falls into 
convulsions as soon as you hold out a snuff-box to him. He 
often even makes the experiment before his friends at his 
summer-house at Guillaume Wood. Would any one believe 
that a simple sternutation could produce such ravages on a 
quadrupedal organism? It is extremely curious, is it not?” 

“Yes,” said Charles, who was not listening to him. 





MADAME BOVARY 163 


“This shows «s,” went on the other, smiling with benign 
self-sufficiency, “the innumerable irregularities of the nervous 
system. With regara to madame, she has always seemed to me, 
I confess, very suscepible. And so I should by no means 
recommend to you, my dear friend, any of those so-called 
remedies that, under the pretence of attacking the symptoms, 
attack the constitution. No; ne useless physicking! Diet, that 
is all; sedatives, emollients, dulcification. Then, don’t you think 
that perhaps her imagination should be worked upon?” 

“In what way? How?” said Bovaty. 

“Ah! that is it. Such is indeed the question. ‘That is the 
question,’ as I lately read in a newspaper.” 

But Emma, awaking, cried out— 

“The letter! the letter!” 

They thought she was delirious; and she was by midnight. 
Brain-fever had set in. 

For forty-three days Charles did not leave her. He gave 
up all his patients; he no longer went to bed; he was con- 
stantly feeling her pulse, putting on sinapisms and cdld-waiter 
compresses. He sent Justin as far as Neufchatel for ice; the 
ice melted on the way; he sent him back again. He called 
Monsieur Canivet into consultation; he sent for Dr. Lariviére, 
his old master, from Rouen; he was in despair. What alarmed 
him most was Emma’s prostration, for she did not speak, did 
not listen, did not even seem to suffer, as if her body and soul 
were both resting together after al! their troubles. 

About the middle of October she could sit up in bed sup- 
ported by pillows. Charles wept when he saw her eat her first 
bread-and-jelly. Her strength returned to her; she got up 
for a few hours of an afternoon, and one day, when she felt 
better, he tried to take her, leaning on his arm, for a walk 
round the garden. The sand of the paths was disappearing be- 
neath the dead leaves; she walked slowly, dragging along her 
slippers, and leaning against Charles’s shoulder. She smiled 
all the time. 

They went thus to the bottom of the garden near the terrace. 
She drew herself up slowly, shading her eyes with her hand 
to look. She looked far off, as far as she could, but on the 
horizon were only great bonfires of grass smoking on the hills. 

“You will tire yourself, my darling!” said Bovary. And, 
pushing her gently to make her go into the arbour, “Sit down 
on this seat; you'll be comfortable.” 

“Oh! no; not there!” she said in a faltering voice. 

She was seized with giddiness, and from that evening her 
illness recommenced, with a more uncertain character, it is 


164 MADAME BOVARY 


true, and more complex symptoms. Now sle suffered in her 
heart, then in the chest, the head, the limbs, she had vomitings, 
in which Charles thought he saw the first signs of cancer. 

And besides this, the poor fellow was worried about money 
matters. 


XIV 


T° begin with, he did not know how he could pay Monsieur 

Homais for all the physic supplied by him, and though, 
yas a medical man, he was not obliged to pay for it, he never- 
' theless blushed a litle at such an obligation. Then the ex- 
penses of the household, now that the servant was mistress, 
became terrible, Bills rained in upon the house; the tradesmen 
grumbled; Monsieur Lheureux especially harassed him. In 
fact, at the height of Emma’s illness, the latter, taking advan- 
tange of the circumstances to make his bill larger, had hur- 
riedly brought the cloak, the travelling-bag, two trunks instead 
of one, and a number of other things. It was very well for 
Charles to say he did not want them. The tradesman answered 
arrogantly that these articles had been ordered, and that he 
would not take them back; besides, it would vex madame in 
her convalescence; the doctor had better think it over; in 
short, he was resolyed to sue him rather than give up his 
rights and take back his goods. Charles subsequently ordered 
them to be sent back to the shop. Feélicité forgot; he had 
other things to attend to; then thought no more about them. 
Monsieur Lheureux returned to the charge, and, by turns 
threatening and whining, so managed that Bovary ended by 
signing a bill at six months. But hardly had he signed this 
bill than a bold idea occurred to him: it was to borrow a 
thousand francs from Lheureux. So, with an embarrassed 
air, he asked if it were possible to get them, adding that it 
would be for a year, at any interest he wished. Lheureux ran 
off to his shop, brought back the money, and dictated another 
bill, by which Bovary undertook to pay to his order on the 
1st of September next the sum of one thousand and seventy 
francs, which, with the hundred and eighty already agreed to, 
made just twelve hundred and fifty, thus lending at six per 
cent. in addition to one-fourth for commission; and the things 
bringing him in a good third at the least, this ought in twelve 
months to give him a profit of a hundred and thirty francs. 
He hoped that the business would not stop there; that the 
bills would not be paid; that they would be renewed; and that 
his poor little money, having thriven at the doctor’s as at a 


MADAME BOVARY 165 


hospital, would come back to him one day considerably more 
plump, and fat enough to burst his bag. 

Everything, moreover, succeeded with him. He was adju- 
dicator for a supply of cider to the hospital at Neufchatel; 
Monsieur Guillaumin promised him some shares in the turf- 
pits of Gaumesnil, and he dreamt of establishing a new dili- 
gence service between Arcueil and Rouen, which no doubt 
would not be long in ruining the ramshackle van of the “Lion 
d’Or,” and that, travelling faster, at a cheaper rate, and carry- 
ing more luggage, would thus put into his hands the whole 
commerce of Yonville. 

Charles several times asked himself by what means he 
should next year be able to pay back so much money. He re- 
flected, imagined expedients, such as applying to his father or 
selling something. But his father would be deaf, and he— 
he had nothing to sell. Then he foresaw such worries that he 
quickly dismissed so disagreeable a subject of meditation from 
his mind. He reproached himself with forgetting Emma, as 
if, all his thoughts belonging to this woman, it was robbing 
her of something not to be constantly thinking of her. 

The winter was severe, Madame Bovary’s convalescence slow. 
When it was fine they wheeled her arm-chair to the window 
that overlooked the square, for she now had an antipathy to 
the garden, and the blinds on that side were always down. 
She wished the horse to be sold; what she formerly liked now 
displeased her. All her ideas seemed to be limited to the care 
of herself. She stayed in bed taking little meals, rang for 
the servant to inquire about her gruel or to chat with her. 
The snow on the market-roof threw a white, still light into 
the room; then the rain began to fall; and Emma waited daily 
with a mind full of eagerness for the inevitable return of some 
trifling events which nevertheless had no relation to her. The 
most important was the arrival of the “Hirondelle” in the 
evening. Then the landlady shouted out, and other voices 
answered, while Hippolyte’s lantern, as he fetched the boxes 
from the boot, was like a star in the darkness. At mid-day 
Charles came in; then he went out again; next she took some 
beef-tea, and towards five o’clock, as the day drew in, the 
children coming back from school, dragging their wooden shoes 
along the pavement, knocked the clapper of the shutters with 
their rulers one after the other. 

It was at this hour that Monsieur Bournisien came to see 
her. He inquired after her health, gave her news, exhorted her 
to religion in a coazing little gossip that was not without its 
charm. The mere thought of his cassock comforted her. 


166 MADAME BOVARY 


One day, when at the height of her illness, she had thought 
herself dying, and had asked for the communion; and, while 
they were making the preparations in her room for the sacra- 
ment, while they were turning the night table covered with 


syrups into an altar, and while Félicité was strewing dahlia 


flowers on the floor, Emma felt some power passing over her 
that freed her from her pains, from all perception, from all 
feeling. Her body, relieved, no longer thought; another life 
was beginning; it seemed to her that her being, mounting 
toward God, would be annihilated in that love like a burning 
incense that melts into vapour. The bed-clothes were sprinkled 
with holy water, the priest drew from the holy pyx the white 
wafer; and it was fainting with a celestial joy that she put 
out her lips to accept the body of the Saviour presented to her. 
The curtains of the alcove floated gently round her like 
clouds, and the rays of the two tapers burning on the night- 
table seemed to shine like dazzling halos. Then she let her 
head fall back, fancying she heard in space the music of sera- 
phic harps, and perceived in an azure sky, on a golden throne 
in the midst of saints holding green palms, God the Father, 
resplendent with majesty, who with a sign sent to earth angels 
with wings of fire to carry her away in their arms. 

This splendid vision dwelt in her memory as the most beau- 
tiful thing that it was possible to dream, so that now she 
strove to recall her sensation, that still lasted, however, but 
in a less exclusive fashion and with a deeper sweetness. Her 
soul, tortured by pride, at length found rest in Christian hu- 
mility, and, tasting the joy of weakness, she saw within herself 
the destruction of her will, that must have left a wide entrance 
for the inroads of heavenly grace. There existed, then, in 
the place of happiness, still greater joys,—another love beyond 
all loves, without pause and without end, one that would grow 
eternally! She saw amid the illusions of her hope a state 
of purity floating above the earth mingling with heaven, to 
which she aspired. She wanted to become a saint. She bought 
chaplets and wore amulets; she wished to have in her room, 
by the side of her bed, a reliquary set in emeralds that she 
might kiss it every evening. 

The curé marvelled at this humour, although Emma’s reli- 
gion, he thought, might, from its fervour, end by touching on 
heresy, extravagance. But not being much versed in these 
matters, as soon as they went beyond a certain limit he wrote 
to Monsieur Boulard, bookseller to Monsignor, to send him 
“something good for a lady who was very clever.” The book- 
seller, with as much indifference as if he had been sending off 


MADAME BOVARY 167 


hardware to niggers, packed up, pell-mell, everything that was 
then the fashion in the pious book trade. There were little 
manuals in questions and answers, pamphlets of aggressive 
tone after the manner of Monsieur de Maistre, and certain 
novels in rose-coloured bindings and with a honied style, manu- 
factured by troubadour seminarists or penitent blue-stockings. 
There were the “Think of it; the Man of the World at Mary’s 
Feet, by Monsieur de ! ! !, décoré with many Orders;” “The 
Errors of Voltaire, for the Use of the Young,” &c. 

Madame Bovary’s mind was not yet sufficiently clear to apply 
herself seriously to anything; moreover, she began this reading 
in too much hurry. She grew provoked at the doctrines of re- 
ligion; the arrogance of the polemic writings displeased her 
by their inveteracy in attacking people she did not know; and 
the secular stories, relieved with religion, seemed to her written 
in such ignorance of the world, that they insensibly estranged’ 
her from the truths for whose proof she was looking. Never- 
theless, she persevered; and when the volume slipped from 
her hands, she fancied herself seized with the finest Catholic 
melancholy that an ethereal soul could conceive. 

As for the memory of Rodolphe, she had thrust it back to 
the bottom of her heart, and it remained there more solemn 
and more motionless than a king’s mummy in a catacomb. An 
exhalation escaped from this embalmed love, that, penetrating 
through everything, perfumed with tenderness the immaculate 
atmosphere in which she longed to live. When she knelt on 
her Gothic prie-Dieu, she addressed to the Lord the same 
suave words that she had murmured formerly to her lover 
in the outpourings of adultery. It was to make faith come; 
but no delights descended from the heavens, and she arose with 
tired limbs and with a vague feeling of a gigantic dupery. 


This searching after faith, she thought, was only one merit . 
the more, and in the pride of her devoutness Emma compared 
herself to those grand ladies of long ago whose glory she had | 
dreamed of over a portrait of La Valliére, and who, trailing 
with so much majesty the lace-trimmed trains of their long 
gowns, retired into solitudes to shed at the feet of Christ all 
the tears of hearts that life had wounded. 

Then she gave herself up to excessive charity. She sewed 
clothes for the poor, she sent wood to women in childbed; and 
Charles one day, on coming home, found three good-for-noth- 
ings in the kitchen seated at the table eating soup. She had 
her little girl, whom during her illness her husband had sent 
back to the nurse, brought home. She wanted to teach her 


168 MADAME BOVARY 


to read; even when Berthe cried, she was not vexed. She 
had made up her mind to resignation, to universal indulgence. 
Her language about everything was full of ideal expressions. 
She said to her child, “Is your stomach-ache better, my angel?” 

Madame Bovary senior found nothing to censure except 
perhaps this mania of knitting jackets for orphans instead of 
mending her own house-linen ; but, harrassed with domestic quar- 
rels, the good woman took pleasure in this quiet house, and she 
even stayed there till after Easter, to escape the sarcasms 
of old Bovary, who never failed on Good Friday to order 
chitterlings. 

Besides the companionship of her mother-in-law, who 
strengthened her a little by the rectitude of her judgment and 
her grave ways, Emma almost every day had other visitors. 
These were Madame Langlois, Madame Caron, Madame Du- 
breuil, Madame Tuvache, and regularly from two to five 
o’clock the excellent Madame Homais, who, for her part, had 
never believed any of the tittle-tattle about her neighbour. 
The little Homais also came to see her; Justin accompanied 
them. He went up with them to her bedroom, and remained 
standing near the door, motionless and mute. Often even 
Madame Bovary, taking no heed of him, began her toilette. 
She began by taking out her comb, shaking her head with a 
quick movement, and when he for the first time saw all this 
mass of hair that fell to her knees unrolling in black ringlets, 
it was to him, poor child! like a sudden entrance into something 
new and strange, whose splendour terrified him. 

Emma, no doubt, did not notice his silent attentions or his 
timidity. She had no suspicion that the love vanished from 
her life was there, palpitating by her side, beneath that coarse 
holland shirt, in that youthful heart open to the emanations of 
her beauty. Besides, she now enveloped all things with such 
indifference, she had words so affectionate with looks so haughty, 
such contradictory ways, that one could no longer distinguish 
egotism from charity, or corruption from virtue. One evening, 
for example, she was angry with the servant, who had asked 
to go out, and stammered as she tried to find some pretext. 
Then suddenly— 

“So you love him?” she said. 

And without waiting for any answer from Féhicité, who was 
blushing, she added, “There! run along; enjoy yourself!” 

In the beginning of spring she had the garden turned up 
from end to end, despite Bovary’s remonstrances. However, 
he was glad to see her at last manifest a wish of any kind. 
As she grew stronger she displaved more wilfulness. First, she 


MADAME BOVARY ° 169 


found occasion to expel Mére Rollet, the nurse, who during 
her convalescence had contracted the habit of coming too often 
to the kitchen with her two nurslings and her boarder, better 
off for teeth than a cannibal. Then she got rid of the Homais 
family, successively dismissed all the other visitors, and even 
frequented church less assiduously, to the great approval of 
the druggist, who said to her in a friendly way— 

“You were going in a bit for the cassock!’ 

As formerly, Monsieur Bournisien dropped in every day when 
he came out after catechism class. He preferred staying out 
of doors to taking the air “in the grove,” as he called the ar- 
bour. This was the time when Charles came home. They 
were hot; some sweet cider was brought out, and they drank 
together to madame’s complete restoration. 

Binet was there; that is to say, a little lower down against 
the terrace wall, fishing for crayfish. Bovary invited him to 
have a drink, and he thoroughly understood the uncorking of 
the stone bottles. 

“You must,” he said, throwing a satisfied glance all round 
him, even to the very extremity of the landscape, “hold the 
bottle perpendicularly on the table, and after the strings are 
cut, press up the cork with little thrusts, gently, gently, as in- 
deed they do seltzer-water at restaurants.” 

But during his demonstration the cider often spurted right 
into their faces, and then the ecclesiastic, with a thick laugh, 
mever missed this joke—— 

“Tts goodness strikes the eye!” 

He was in fact, a good fellow and one day he was not even 
scandalised at the chemist, who advised Charles to give madame 
some distraction by taking her to the theatre at Rouen to hear 
the illustrious tenor, Lagardy. Homais, surprised at this silence, 
wanted to know his opinion, and the priest declared that he 
considered music less dangerous for morals than literature. 

But the chemist took up the defence of letters. The theatre, 
he contended, served for railing at prejudices, and, beneath a 
mask of pleasure, taught virtue. 

“Castigat ridendo mores, Monsieur Bournisien! Thus con- 
sider the greater part of Voltaire’s tragedies; they are cleverly 
strewn with philosophical reflections, that make them a very 
school of morals and diplomacy for the people.” 

“I,” said Binet, “once saw a piece called the ‘Gamin de Paris,’ 
in which there was the character of an old general that is 
really hit off to a T. He sets down a young swell who had se- 
duced a working girl, who at the ending——” 

“Certainly,” continued Homais, “there is bad literature as 


170 MADAME BOVARY 


there is bad pharmacy, but to condemn in a lump the most 
important of the fine arts seems to me a stupidity, a Gothic 
idea, worthy of the abominable times that imprisoned Galileo.” 

“I know very well,” objected the curé, “that there are good 
works, good authors. However, if it were only those persons 
of different sexes united in a bewitching apartment, decorated 
rouge, those lights, those effeminate voices, all this must, in the 
long-run, engender a certain mental libertinage, give rise to im- 
modest thoughts and impure temptations. Such, at any rate, is 
the opinion of all the Father. Finally,” he added, suddenly as- 
' suming a mystic tone of voice while he rolled a pinch of snuff 
between his fingers, “if the Church has condemned the theatre, 
she must be right; we must submit to her décrees.” 

“Why,” asked the druggist, “should she excommunicate 
actors? For formerly they openly took part in religious 
ceremonies. Yes, in the middle of the chancel they acted; 
they performed a kind of farce called ‘Mysteries,’ which often 
offended against the laws of decency.” 

The ecclesiastic contented himself with uttering a groan, 
and the chemist went on—— 

“Tt’s like it is in the Bible; there there are, you know, more 
than one piquant detail, matters really libidinous!” 

And on a gesture of irritation from Monsieur Bournisien— 

“Ah! you'll admit that it is not a book to place in the hands 
of a young girl, and I should be sorry if Athalie——” 

“But it is the Protestants, and not we,” cried the other im- 
patiently, “Who recommend the Bible.” 

“No matter,” said Homais. “I am surprised that in our 
days, in this century of enlightenment, any one should still 
persist in proscribing an intellectual relaxation that is in- 
offensive, moralising, and sometimes even hygienic; is it not, 
doctor?” 

“No doubt,” replied the doctor carelessly, either because, shar- 
ing the same ideas, he wished to offend no one, or else be 
cause he had not any ideas. 

The conversation seemed at an end when the chemist thought 
fit to shoot a Parthian arrow. 

“T’ve known priests who put on ordinary clothes to go and see 
dancers kicking about.” 

“Come, come!” said the curé. 

“Ah! I’ve known some!” And separating the words of 
his sentence, Homais repeated, “I—have—known—some!” 

“Well, they were wrong,” said Bournisien, resigned to any- 
thing. 

“By Jove! they go in far more than that,” exclaimed the| 
druggist. 


MADAME BOVARY , 171 


“Sir!” replied the ecclesiastic, with such angry eyes that the 
druggist was intimidated by them. 
“I only mean to say,” he replied in less brutal a tone, “that 

toleration is the surest way to draw people to religion.” 

“That is true! that is true!” agreed the good fellow, sitting 
down again on his chair. But he stayed only a few moments. 

Then, as soon as he had gone, Monsieur Homais said to the 
doctor— 

“That’s what I call a cock-fight. I beat him, did you see, in 
a way!—Now take my advice. Take madame to the theatre, if 
it were only for once in your life, to enrage one of these ravens, 
hang it! If any one could take my place, I would accompany 
you myself. Be quick about it. Lagardy is only going to give 
one performance; he’s engaged to go to England at a high 
salary. From what I hear, he’s a regular dog; he’s rolling in 
money; he’s taking three mistresses and a cook along with him. 
All these great artists burn the candle at both ends; they re- 
quire a dissolute life, that stirs the imagination to some extent. 
But they die at the hospital, because they haven’t the sense when 
young to lay by. Well, a pleasant dinner! Good-bye till to- 
morrow.” 

The idea of the theatre quickly germinated in Bovary’s head, 
for he at once communicated it to his wife, who at first refused, 
alleging the fatigue, the worry, the expense; but, for a wonder, 
Charles did not give in, so sure was he that this recreation would 
be good for her. He saw nothing to prevent it: his mother had 
sent them three hundred francs which he had no longer ex- 
pected; the current debts were not very large, and the falling 
in of Lheureux’s bills was still so far off that there was no need 
to think about them. Besides, imagining that she was refusing 
from delicacy, he insisted the more; so that by dint of worrying 
her she at last made up her mind, and the next day at eight 
o’clock they set out in the “Hirondelle.” 

The druggist, whom nothing whatever kept at Yonville, but 
who thought himself bound not to budge from it, sighed ds he 
saw them go. 

“Well, a pleasant journey!” he said to them; “happy mortals 
that you are!” 

_ Then addressing himself to Emma, who was wearing a blue 
silk gown with four flounces— 

“You are as lovely as a Venus. You'll cut a figure at 
Rouen.” 

The diligence stopped at the “Croix-Rouge” in the Place 
Beauvoisine. It was the inn that is in every provincial faubourg, 
with large stables and small bedrooms, where one sees in the 


172 MADAME BOVARY 


middle of the court chickens pilfering tke oats under the muddy 
gigs of the commercial travellers;—a good old house, with 
worm-eaten balconies that creak in the wind on winter nights, 
always full of people, noise, and feeding, whose black tables are 
sticky with coffee and brandy, the thick windows made yellow 
by the flies, the damp napkins stained with cheap wine, and that 
always smells of the village, like ploughboys dressed in Sunday- 
clothes, has a café on the street, and towards the countryside 
a kitchen-garden. Charles at once set out. He muddled up the 
stage-boxes with the gallery, the pit with the boxes; asked for 
explanations, did not understand them; was sent from the 
box-office to the acting-manager; came back to the inn, returned 
to the theatre, and thus several times traversed the whole length 
of the town from the theatre to the boulevard. 

Madame Bovary bought a bonnet, gloves, and a bouquet. The 
doctor was much afraid of missing the beginning, and, without 
having had time to swallow a plate of soup, they presented 
themselves at the doors of the theatre, which were still closed. 


XV 


HE crowd was waiting against the wall, symmetrically en- 

closed between the balustrades. At the corner of the 
neighbouring streets huge bills repeated in quaint letters “Lucie 
de Lammermoor—Lagardy—Opera—&c.” The weather was fine, 
the people were hot, perspiration trickled amid the curls, and 
handkerchiefs taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads; 
and now and then a warm wind that blew from the river gently 
stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging from the doors 
of the public-houses. A little lower down, however, one was 
refreshed by a current of icy air that smelt of tallow, leather, 
and oil. This was an exhalation from the Rue des Charrettes, 
full of large black warehouses where they make casks. 

For fear of seeming ridiculous, Emma before going in wished 
to have a little stroll in the harbour, and Bovary prudently kept 
his tickets in his hand, in the pocket of his trousers, which he 
pressed against his stomach. 

Her heart began to beat as soon as she reached the vestibule. 
She involuntarily smiled with vanity on seeing the crowd rush- 
ing to the right by the other corridor while she went up the 
staircase to the reserved seats. She was as pleased as a child 
to push with her finger the large tapestried door. She breathed 
in with afl her might the dusty smell of the lobbies, and when she 
was seated in her box she bent forward with the air of a 
duchess. 


MADAME BOVARY 173 


The theatre was beginning to fill; opera-glasses were taken 
from their cases, and the subscribers, catching sight of one 
another, were bowing. They came to seek relaxation in the 
fine arts after the anxieties of business; but “business” was not 
forgotten; they still talked cottons, spirits of wine, or indigo. 
The heads of old men were to be seen, inexpressive and peace- 
ful, with their hair and complexions looking like silver medals 
tarnished by steam of lead. The young beaux were strutting 
about in the pit, showing in the opening of their waistcoats 
their pink or apple-green cravats, and Madame Bovary from 
above admired them leaning on their canes with golden knobs 
in the open palm of their yellow gloves. 

Now the lights of the orchestra were lit, the lustre, let down 
from the ceiling, throwing by the glimmering of its facets 
a sudden gaiety over the theatre; then the musicians came in 
one after the other; and first there was the protracted hubbub 
of the basses grumbling, violins squeaking, cornets trumpeting, 
flutes and flageolets fifing. But three knocks were heard on 
the stage, a rolling of drums began, the brass instruments played 
some chords, and the curtain rising, discovered a country- 
scene. 

It was the cross-roads of a wood, with a fountain shaded by 
an oak to the left. Peasants and lords with plaids on their 
shoulders were singing a hunting-song together; then a captain 
suddenly came on, who evoked the spirit of evil by lifting both 
his arms to heaven. Another appeared; they went away, and 
the hunters started afresh. 

She felt herself transported tc the reading of her youth, 
into the midst of Walter Scott. She seemed to hear through 
the mist the sound of the Scotch bagpipes re-echoing over 
the heather. Then her remembrance of the novel helping her 
to understand the libretto, she followed the story phrase by 
phrase, while vague thoughts that came back to her dispersed 
at once again with the bursts of music. She gave herself up 
to the lullaby of the melodies, and felt all her being vibrate 
as if the violin bows were drawn over her nerves. She had 
not eyes enough to look at the costumes, the scenery, the acto 
the painted trees that shook when any one walked, and the 
velvet caps, cloaks, swords—all those imaginary things that 
floated amid the harmony as in the atmosphere of another world. 
But a young woman stepped forward, throwing a purse to a 
squire in green. She was left alone, and the flute was heard 
like the murmur of a fountain or the warbling of birds. Lucie 
attacked her cavatina in G major bravely. She plained of 
love; she longed for wings. Emma, too, fleeing from life, would 


174 MADAME BOVARY 


have liked to fly away in an embrace. Suddenly Edgar-Lagardy 
appeared. 

He had that splendid palor that gives something of the 
majesty of marble to the ardent races of the South. His 
vigourous form was tightly clad in a brown-coloured doublet; 
a small chiselled poniard hung against his left thigh, and he 
cast round laughing looks showing his white teeth. They said 
that a Polish princess having heard him sing one night on the 
beach at Biarritz, where he mended boats, had fallen in love 
with him. She had ruined herself for him. He had deserted 
her for other women, and this sentimental celebrity did not 
fail to enhance his artistic reputation. The diplomatic mummer 
took care always to slip into his advertisements some poetic 
phrase on the fascination of his person and the susceptibility 
of his soul. A fine organ, imperturbable coolness, more tempera- 
ment than intelligence, more power of emphasis than of real 
singing, made up the charm of this admirable charlatan nature, 
in which there was something of the hairdresser and the 
toréador. 

From the first scene he evoked enthusiasm. He pressed 
Lucy in his arms, he left her, he came back, he seemed des- 
perate; he had outbursts of rage, then elegaic gurglings of 
infinite sweetness, and the notes escaped from his bare neck 
full of sobs and kisses. Emma lent forward to see him, clutch- 
ing the velvet of the box with her nails. She was filling her 
heart with these melodious lamentations that were drawn out to 
the accompaniment of the double-basses, like the cries of the 
drowning in the tumult of a tempest. She recognised all the 
intoxication and the anguish that had almost killed her. The 
voice of the prima donna seemed to her to be but echoes of 
her conscience, and this illusion that charmed her as some very 
thing of her own life. But no one on earth had loved her with 
such love. He had not wept like Edgar that last moonlit night 
when they said, “To-morrow! to-morrow!” The theatre rang 
with cheers; they recommenced the entire movement; the lovers 
spoke of the flowers on their tomb, of vows, exile, fate, hopes; 
and when they uttered the final adieu, Emma gave a sharp cry 
that mingled with the vibrations of the last chords. 

“But why,” asked Bovary, “does that gentleman persecute 
her ?” 

“No, no!” she answered; “he is her lover!” 

“Yet he vows vengeance on her family, while the other one 
who came on before said, ‘I love Lucie and she loves me!’ Be- 
sides, he went off with her father arm in arm. For he certainly 
is her father, isn’t he—the ugly little man with a cock’s feather 

sin, hts hat?” | 


MADAME BOVARY 175 


Despite Emma’s explanations, as soon as the recitative duet 
began in which Gilbert lays bare his abominable machinations 
to his master Ashton, Charles, seeing the false troth-ring that is 
to deceive Lucie, thought it was a love-gift sent by Edgar. He 
confessed, moreover, that he did not understand the story be- 
cause of the music, which interfered very much with the words. 

“What does it matter?” said Emma. “Do be quiet!” 

“Yes, but you know,” he went on, leaning against her shoulder, 
“T like to understand things.” 

“Be quiet! be quiet!” she cried impatiently. 

Lucie advanced, half supported by her women, a wreath of 
orange blossoms in her hair, and paler than the white satin of 
her gown. Emma dreamed of her marriage day; she saw her- 
self at home again amid the corn in the little path as they walked 
to the church. Oh, why had not she, like this woman, resisted, 
implored? She, on the contrary, had been joyous, without 
seeing the abyss into which she was throwing herself. Ah! 
if in the freshness of her beauty, before the soiling of marriage 
and the disillusions of adultery, she could have anchored her 
life upon some great, strong heart, then virtue, tenderness, vo- 
luptuousness, and duty blending, she would never have fallen 
from so high a happiness. But that happiness, no doubt, was a 
lie inverted for the despair of all desire. She now knew the 
smailness of the passions that art exaggerated. So, striving 
to divert her thoughts, Emma determined now to see in this 
reproduction of her sorrows only a plastic fantasy, well enough 
to please the eye, and she even smiled internally with disdainful 
pity when at the back of the stage under the velvet hangings a 
man appeared in a black cloak. 

His large Spanish hat fell at a gesture he made, and immedi- 
ately the instruments and the singers began the sextet. Edgar, 
flashing with fury, dominated all the others with his clearer 
voice; Ashton hurled homicidal provocations at him in deep 
notes; Lucie uttered her shrill plaint, Arthur at one side, his 
modulated tones in the middle register, and the bass of the 
minister pealed forth like an organ, while the voices of the 
women repeating his words took them up in chorus delightfully. 
They were all in a row gesticulating, and anger, vengeance, 
jealousy, terror, and stupefaction breathed forth at once from 
their half-opened mouths. The outraged lover brandished his 
naked sword; his guipure ruffle rose with jerks to the move- 
ments of his chest, and he walked from right to left with long 
strides, clanking against the boards the silver-gilt spurs of his 
soft boots, widening out at the ankles, He, she thought, must 
have an inexhaustible leve to lavish it upon the crowd with 


176 MADAME BOVARY 


such effusion. All her small fault-findings faded before the 
poetry of the part that absorbed her; and, drawn towards this 
man by the illusion of the character, she tried to imagine to 
herself his life—that life resonant, extraordinary, splendid, and 
that might have been hers if fate had willed it. They would 
have known one another, loved one another. With him, through 
all the kingdoms of Europe she would have travelled from capi- 
tal to capital, sharing his fatigues and his pride, picking up the 
flowers thrown to him, herself embroidering his costumes. 
Then each evening, at the back of a box, behind the golden 
trellis-work, she would have drunk in eagerly the expansions 
of this soul that would have sung for her alone; from the stage, 
even as he acted, he would have looked at her. But the mad 
idea seized her that he was looking at her; it was certain. 
She longed to run to his arms, to take refuge in his strength, 
as in the incarnation of love itself, and to say to him, to cry 
out, “Take me away! carry me with you! let us go! Thine, 
thine! all my ardour and all my dreams!” 

The curtain fell. 

The smell of the gas mingled with that of the breaths, the 
waving of the fans, made the air more suffocating. Emma 
wanted to go out; the crowd filled the corridors, and she fell 
back in her arm-chair with palpitations that choked her. Charles, 
fearing that she would faint, ran to the refreshment-room to 
get a glass of barley-water. 

He had great difficulty in getting back to his seat, for his 
elbows were jerked at every step because of the glass he held 
in his hands, and he even spilt three-fourths on the shoulders 
of a Rouen lady in short sleeves, who feeling the cold liquid 
running down to her loins, uttered cries like a peacock, as if 
she were being assassinated. Her husband, who was a mill- 
owner, railed at the clumsy fellow, and while she was with her 
handkerchief wiping up the stains from her handsome cherry- 
coloured taffeta gown, he angrily muttered about indemnity, 
costs, reinbursement. At last Charles reached his wife, saying 
to her, quite out of breath— 

“Ma foi! I thought I should have had to stay there. There 
is such a crowd—such a crowd!” 

He added— 

“Just guess whom I met up there! Monsieur Léon!” 

“Léon?” 

“Himself! He’s coming along to pay his respects.” And 
as he finished these words the ex-clerk of Yonville entered the 
box. 

He heid out his hand with the ease of a gentleman; and 
Madame Bovary extended hers, without doubt obeying the 


MADAME BOVARY 177 


attraction of a stronger will. She had not felt it since that 
spring evening when the rain fell upon the green leaves, and 
they had said good-bye standing at the window. But soon re- 
calling herself to the necessities of the situation, with an effort 
she shook off the torpor of her memories, and began stammer- 
ing a few hurried words. 

“Ah, good-day! What! you here?” 

“Silence!” cried a voice from the pit, for the third act was 
beginning. 

“So you are at Rouen?” 

Veo’ 

“And since when?” 

“Turn them out! turn them out!” People were looking at 
them. They were silent. 

But from that moment she listened no more; and the chorus 
of the guests, the scene between Ashton and his servant, the 
grand duet in D major, all were for her as far off as if the 
instruments had grown less sonorous and the characters more 
remote. She remembered the games at cards at the druggist’s, 
and the walk to the nurse’s, the reading in the arbour, the téte- 
a-téte by the fireside—all that poor love, so calm and so pro- 
tracted, so discreet, so tender, and that she had nevertheless 
forgotten. And why had he come back? What combination 
of circumstances had brought him back into her life. He was 
standing behind her, leaning with his shoulder against the wall 
of the box; now and again she felt herself shuddering beneath 
the hot breath from his nostrils falling upon her hair. 

“Does this amuse you?” he said, bending over her so closely 
that the end of his moustache brushed her cheek. She replied 
carelessly— 

“Oh, dear me, no, not much.” 

Then he proposed that they should leave the theatre and g¢ 

and take an ice somewhere. 
“Oh, not yet; let us stay,” said Bovary. “Her hair’s undone; 
this is going to be tragic.” 

But the mad scene did not at all interest Emma, and the 
acting of the singer seemed to her exaggerated. 

“She screams too loud,” said she, turning to Charles, who was 
listening. 

“Ves—perhaps—a little,’ he replied, undecided between the 
frankness of his pleasure and his respect for his wife’s opinion. 

Then with a sigh Léon said— 

“The heat is——” 

“Unbearable! Yes!” 

“Do you feel unwell?” asked Bovary. 


”? 


178 MADAME BOVARY 


“Yes, I am stifling; let us go.” 

Monsieur Léon put her long lace shawl carefully about her 
shoulders, and all three went off to sit down in the harbour, in 
the open air, outside the windows of a café. 

First they spoke of her illness, although Emma interrupted 
Charles from time to time, for fear, she said, of boring Mon- 
sieur Léon; and the latter told them that he had come to 
spend two years at Rouen in a large office, in order to get 
practice in his profession, which was different in Normandy and 
Paris. Then he inquired after Berthe, the Homais, Mére Le- 
francois, and as they had, in the husband’s presence, nothing 
more to say to one another, the conversation soon came to an 
end. . 

People coming out of the theatre passed along the pave- 
ment, humming or shouting at the top of their voices, “O bel 
ange, ma Lucie!” Then Léon, playing the dilettante, began to 
talk music. He had seen Tamburini, Rubini, Persiani, Grisi, 
and, compared with them, Lagardy, despite his grand outbursts, 
was nowhere. 

“Yet,” interrupted Charles, who was slowly sipping his rum- 
sherbet, “they say that he is quite admirable in the last act. I 
regret leaving before the end, because it was beginning to amuse 
me.” 

“Why,” said the clerk, “he will soon give another perform- 
ance.” 

But Charles replied that they were going back next day. 
“Unless,” he added, turning to his wife, “you would like to 
stay alone, pussy?” 

And changing his tactics at this unexpected opportunity that 
presented itself to his hopes, the young man sang the praises 
of Lagardy in the last number. It was really superb, sublime. 
Then Charles insisted— 

“You would get back on Sunday. Come, make up your mind. 
You are wrong if you feel that this is doing you the least 
good.” 

The tables round them, however, were emptying; a waiter 
tame and stood discreetly near them. Charles, who under- 
stood, took out his purse; the clerk held back his arm, and 
lid not forget to leave two more pieces of silver that he made 
think on the marble. 

“I am really sorry,” said Bovary, “about the money which 
you are 2 

The other made a careless gesture full of cordiality, and 
taking his hat said— 

“It is settled, isn’t it? To-morrow at six o’clock?” 





MADAME BOVARY 179 


Charles explained once more that he could not absent him- 
self longer, but that nothing prevented Emma—— 

“But,” she stammered, with a strange smile, “I am not 
sure——” 

“Well, you must think it over. We'll see. Night brings coun- 
sel.” Then to Léon, who was walking along with them, “Now 
that you are in our part of the world, I hope you'll come and 
ask us for some dinner now and then.” 

The clerk declared he would not fail to do so, being obliged, 
moreover, to go to Yonville on some business for his office. 
And they parted before the Saint-Herbland Passage just as 
the cathedral struck half-past eleven. 


PART III 
I 


ONSIEUR LEON, while studying law, had gone pretty 

often to the dancing-rooms, where he was even a great 
success amongst the grisettes, who thought he had a distin- 
guished air. He was the best-mannered of the students; he 
wore his hair neither too long nor too short, didn’t spend 
all his quarter’s money on the first day of the month, and kept 
on good terms with his professors. As for excesses, he had 
always abstained from them, as much from cowardice as from 
refinement. 

Often when he stayed in his room to read, or else when 
sitting of an evening under the lime-trees of the Luxembourg, 
he let his Code fall to the ground, and the memory of Emma 
came back to him. But gradually this feeling grew weaker, 
and other desires gathered over it, although it still persisted 
through them all. For Léon did not lose all hope; there was 
for him, as it were, a vague promise floating in the future, like 
a golden fruit suspended from some fantastic tree. 

Then, seeing her again after three years of absence, his 
passion reawakened. He must, he thought, at last make up 
his mind to possess her. Moreover, his timidity had worn off 
by contact with his gay companions, and he returned to the 
provinces despising every one who had not with varnished shoes 
trodden the asphalte of the boulevards. By the side of a 
Parisienne in her laces, in the drawing-room of some illustrious 
physician, a person driving his carriage and wearing many or- 
ders, the poor clerk would no doubt have trembled Jike a 
child; but here, at Rouen, on the harbour, with the wife of 
this small doctor he felt at his ease, sure beforehand he would 
shine. Self-possession depends on its environment. We don’t 
speak on the first floor as on the fourth; and the wealthy 
woman seems to have, about her, to guard her virtue, all her 
bank-notes, like a cuirass, in the lining of her corset. 

On leaving the Bovarys the night before, Léon had followed 

180 


MADAME BOVARY 181 


them through the streets at a distance: then having seen 
them stop at the “Croix-Rouge,” he turned on his heel, and 
spent the night meditating a plan. 

So the next day about five o’clock he walked into the kitchen 
of the inn, with a choking sensation in his throat, pale cheeks, 
and that resolution of cowards that stops at nothing. 

“The gentleman isn’t in,’ answered a servant. 

This seemed to him a good omen. He went upstairs. 

She was not disturbed at his approach; on the contrary, she 
apologised for having neglected to tell him where they were 
staying. 

“Oh, I divined it!” said Léon. 

He pretended he had been guided towards her by chance, 
by: instinct. She began to smile; and at once, to repair his 
folly, Léon told her that he had spent his morning in looking 

for her in all the hotels in the town, one after the other. 
“So you have made up your mind to stay?” he added. 

“Yes,” she said, “and I am wrong. One ought not to accus- 
tom oneself to impossible pleasures when there are a thousand 
demands upon one.” 

“Oh, I can imagine!” 

“Ah! no; for you, you are a man!” , 

But men too had their trials, and the conversation went off 
into certain philosophical reflections. Emma expatiated - much 
on the misery of earthly affections, and the eternal isolation in 
which the heart remains entombed. 

To show off, or from a naive imitation of this melancholy 
which called forth his, the young man declared that he had 
been awfully bored during the whole course of his studies. 
The law irritated him, other vocations attracted him, and his 
mother never ceased worrying him in every one of her letters. 
As they talked they explained more and more fully the motives 
of their sadness, working themselves up in their progressive 
confidence. But they sometimes stopped short of the complete 
exposition of their thought, and then sought to invent a phrase 
that might express it all the same. She did not confess her 
passion for another; he did not say that he had forgotten her. 

Perhaps he no longer remembered his suppers with girls 
after masked balls; and no doubt she did not recollect the 
rendezvous of old when she ran across the fields in the morn- 
ing to her lover’s house. The noises of the town hardly reached 
them, and the room seemed small, as if on purpose to hem 
jn their solitude more closely. Emma, in a dimity dressing- 
}zown, leant her head against the back of the old arm-chair ; 
the yellow wall-paper formed, as it were, a golden back-ground 


182 MADAME BOVARY 


behind her, and her bare head was mirrored in the glass with 
the white parting in the middle, and the tip of her ears peep- 
ing out from the folds of her hair. 

“But pardon me!” she said. “It is wrong of me. I weary 
you with my eternal complaints.” 

“No, never, never!” 

“Tf you knew,” she went on, raising to the ceiling her beau- 
tiful eyes, in which a tear was trembling, “all that I had 
dreamed !” 

“And I! Oh, I too have suffered! Often I went out; I 
went away. I dragged myself along the quays, seeking dis- 
traction amid the din of the crowd without being able to banish 
the heaviness that weighed upon me. In an engraver’s shop 
on the boulevard there is an Italian print of one of the Muses. 
She is draped in a tunic, and she is looking at the moon, with 
forget-me-nots in her flowing hair. Something drove me there 
continually; I stayed there hours together.” Then in a trem- 
bling voice, “She resembled you a little.” 

Madame Bovary turned away her head that he might not 
see the irrepressible smile she felt rising to her lips. 

“Often,” he went on, “I wrote you letters that I tore up.” 

She did not answer. He continued— 

“T sometimes fancied that some chance would bring you. 
IT thought I recognised you at street-corners, and I ran after all 
the carriages through whose windows I saw a shawl fluttering, 
a veil like yours.” 

She seemed resolved to let him go on speaking without 
interruption. Crossing her arms and bending down her face, 
she looked at the rosettes on her slippers, and at intervals 
made little movements inside the satin of them with her toes. 

At last she sighed. 

“But the most wretched thing, is it not—is to drag out, as 
I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use 
to some one, we should find consolation in the thought of the 
sacrifice.” 

He started off in praise of virtue, duty, and silent immola- 
tion, having himself an incredible longing for self-sacrifice 
that he could not satisfy. 

“T should much like,” she said, “to be a nurse at a hospital.” 

“Alas! men have none of these holy missions, and I see no- 
where any calling—unless perhaps that of a doctor.” 

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Emma interrupted him 
to speak of her illness, which had almost killed her. What a 
pity! She should not be suffering now! Léon at once envied 
the calm of the tomb, and one evening he had even made his 


MADAME BOVARY 182 


will, asking to be buried in that beautiful rug with velvet stripes 
he had received from her. For this was how they would 
have wished to be, each setting up an ideal to which they 
were now adapting their past life. Besides, speech is a rolling- 
mill that always thins out the sentiment. 

But at this invention of the rug she asked, “But why?” 

“Why?” He hesitated. “Because I loved you so!” And 
congratulating himself at having surmounted the difficulty, 
Léon watched her face out of the corner of his eyes. 

It was like the sky when a gust of wind drives the clouds 
across. The mass of sad thoughts that darkened them seemed 
to be lifted from her blue eyes; her whole face shone. He 
waited. At last she replied— 

“T always suspected it.” 

Then they went over all the trifling events of that far-off 
existence, whose joys and sorrows they had just summed up 
in one word. They recalled the arbour with clematis, the dresses 
she had worn, the furniture of her room, the whole of her house. 

“And our poor cactuses, where are they?” 

“The cold killed them this winter.” 

“Ah! how I have thought of them, do you know? I often 
saw them again as of yore, when on the summer mornings 
the sun beat down upon your blinds, and I saw your two bare 
-arms passing out amongst the flowers.” 

“Poor friend!” she said, holding out her hand to him. 

Léon swiftly pressed his lips to it. Then, when he had fret 
a deep breath— 

“At that time you were to me I know not what incompre- 
hensible force that took captive my life. Once, for instance, I 
went to see you; but you, no doubt, do not remember it.” 

Slidowasne Ssaids “go on, 

“You were downstairs in the ante-room, ready to go out, 
standing on the last stair; you were wearing a bonnet with 
small blue flowers; and without any invitation from you, in 
spite of myself, I went with you. Every moment, however, 
I grew more and more conscious of my folly, and I went on 
walking by you, not daring to follow you completely, and un- 
willing to leave you. When you went into a shop, I waited in 
the street, and I watched yop through the window taking off 
your gloves and counting the change on the counter. Then you 
rang at Madame Tuvache’s; you were let in, and I stood like an 
idiot in front of the great heavy door that had closed after you.” 

Madame Bovary, as she listened to him, wondered that 
she was so old. All these things reappearing before her seemed 
to widen out her life; it was like some sentimental immensity 


184 MADAME BOVARY 


to which she returned; and from time to time she said in a 
low voice, her eyes b.lf closed—— 

“Yes, it is true—true—true!” 

They heard eight strike on the different clocks of the Beau- 
voisine quarter, that is full of schools, churches, and large 
empty hotels. They no longer spoke, but they felt as they 
looked upon each other a buzzing in their heads, as if some- 
thing sonorous had escaped from the fixed eyes of each of 
them. They were hand in hand now, and the past, the future, 
reminiscences and dreams, all were confounded in the sweetness 
of this ecstasy. Night was darkening over the walls, on which 
still shone, half hidden in the shade, the coarse colours of four 
bills representing four scenes from the “Tour de Nesle,” with 
a motto in Spanish and French at the bottom. Through the 
sash-window a patch of dark sky was seen between the pointed 
roofs. 

She rose to light two wax-candles on the drawers, then she 
sat down again. 

“Well!” said Léon. 

“Well!” she replied. 

He was thinking how to resume the interrupted conversation, 
when she said to him— 

“How is it that no one until now has ever expressed such 
sentiments to me?” 

The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to understand. 
He from the first moment had loved her, and he despaired when 
he thought of the happiness that would have been theirs, if 
thanks to fortune, meeting her earlier, they had been indis- 
solubly bound to one another. 

“T have sometimes thought of it,” she went on. 

“What a dream!” murmured Léon. And fingering gently the 
blue binding of her long white sash, he added, “And who pre- 
vents us from beginning now?” 

“No, my friend,” she replied; “I am too old; you are too 
young. Forget me! Others will love you; you will love them.” 

“Not as you!” he cried. 

“What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. I wish it.” 

She showed him the impossibility of their love, and that 
they must remain, as formerly, on the simple terms of a frater- 
nal friendship. 

Was she speaking thus seriously? No doubt Emma did not 
herself know, quite absorbed as she was by the charm of the 
seduction, and the necessity of defending herself from it; and 
contemplating the young man with a moved look, she gently 
repulsed the timid caresses that his trembling hands attempted. 


MADAME BOVARY 185 


“Ah! forgive me!” he cried, drawing back. 

Emma was seized with a vague fear at this shyness, more 
dangerous to her than the boldness of Rodolphe when he ad- 
vanced to her open-armed. No man had ever seemed to her 
so beautiful. An exquisite candour emanated from his being. 
He lowered his long fine eyelashes, that curled upwards. His 
cheek, with the soft skin reddened, she thought, with desire 
of her person, and Emma felt an invincible longing to press 
her lips to it. Then, leaning towards the clock as if to see 
the time— 

“Ah! how late it is!” she said; “how we do chatter!” 

He understood the hint and took up his hat. 

“Tt has even made me forget the theatre. And poor Bovary 
has left me here especially for that. Monsieur Lormeaux, of 
the Rue Grand-Pont, was to take me and his wife.” 

And the opportunity was lost, as she was to leave the next 
day. 

“Really!” said Léon. 

“Ves.” 

“But I must see you again,” he went on. “I wanted to tell 
wot" 

“What?” 

“Something—important—serious. Oh, no! Besides, you will 
not go; it is impossible. If you should—listen to me. Then 
you have not understood me; you have not guessed——” 

“Vet you speak plainly,” said Emma. 

“Ah! you can jest. Enough! enough! Oh, for pity’s sake, 
let me see you once—only once!” 

“Well——” She stopped; then, as if thinking better of it, 
“Oh, not here!” 

“Where you will.” 

“Will you——” She seemed to reflect; then abruptly, “To~ 
morrow at eleven o’clock in the cathedral.” 

“T shall be there,” he cried, seizing her hands, which she 
disengaged. 

And as they were both standing up, he behind her, and 
Emma with her head bent, he stooped over her and pressed 
long kisses on her neck. 

“You are mad! Ah! you are mad!” she said, with sounding 
little laughs, while the kisses multiplied. 

Then bending his head over her shoulder, he seemed to beg 
the consent of her eyes. They fell upon him full of an icy 
dignity. 

Léon stepped back to go out. He stopped on the threshold; 
then he whispered with a trembling voice, “To-morrow!” 


”? 
! 


186 MADAME BOVARY 


She answered with a nod, and’ disappeared like a bird into 
the next room. 

In the evening Emma wrote the clerk an interminable letter, 
in which she cancelled the rendezvous; all was over; they 
must not, for the sake of their happiness, meet again. But 
when the letter was finished, as she did not know Léon’s ad- 
dress, she was puzzled. 

“T’Jl_ give it to him myself,” she said; “he will come.” 

The next morning, at the open window, and humming on 
his balcony, Léon himself varnished his pumps with several 
coatings. He put on white trousers, fine socks, a green coat, 
emptied all the scent he had into his handkerchief, then having 
had his hair curled, he uncurled it again, in order to give it 
a more natural elegance. 

“It is still too early,” he thought, looking at the hair- 
dresser’s cuckoo-clock, that pointed to the hour of nine. He 
read an old fashion journal, went out, smoked a cigar, walked 
up three streets, thought it was time, and went slowly towards 
the porch of Notre Dame. 

It was a beautiful summer morning. Silver plate sparkled in 
the jeweller’s windows, and the light falling obliquely on the 
cathedral made mirrors of the corners of the grey stones; a 
flock of birds fluttered in the grey sky round the trefoii bell- 
turrets; the square, resounding with cries, was fragrant with 
the flowers that bordered its pavement, roses, jasmines, pinks, 
narcissi, and tuberoses, unevenly spaced out between moist 
grasses, cat-mint, and chickweed for the birds; the fountains 
gurgled in the centre, and under large umbrellas, amidst melons 
piled up in heaps, flower-women, bare-headed, were twisting 
paper round bunches of violets. 

The young man took one. It was the first time that he had 
bought flowers for a woman, and his breast, as he smelt them, 
swelled with pride, as if this homage that he meant for an- 
other had recoiled upon himself. 

But he was afraid of being seen; he resolutely entered the 
church. The beadle, who was just then standing on the thres- 
hold in the middle of the left doorway, under the “Dancing 
Marianne,” with feather cap, and rapier dangling against his 
calves, came in, more majestic than a cardinal, and as shining 
as a saint on a holy pyx. 

He came towards Léon, and, with that smile of wheedling 
benignity assumed by ecclesiastics when they question children— 

“The gentleman, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? 
The gentleman would like to see the curiosities of the church?” 

“No!” said the other, 


a rm OR x 


».. - 


MADAME BOVARY 187 


And he first went round the lower aisles. Then he went 
out to look at the Place. Emma was not coming yet. He 
went up again to the choir. 

The nave was reflected in the full fonts with the begin- 
ning of the arches and some portions of the glass windows. 
But the reflections of the paintings, broken by the marble rim, 
were continued farther on upon the flag-stones, like a many- 
coloured carpet. The broad daylight from without streamed 
into the church in three enormous rays from the three opened 
portals. From time to time at the upper end a sacristan passed, 
making the oblique genuflexion of devout persons in a hurry. 
The crystal lustres hung motionless. In the choir a silver lamp 
was burning, and from the side chapels and dark places of the 
church sometimes rose sounds like sighs, with the clang of a 
closing grating, its echo reverberating under the lofty vault. 

Léon with solemn steps walked along by the walls. Life 
had never seemed so good to him. She would come directly, 
charming, agitated, looking back at the glances that followed 
her, and with her flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her thin 
shoes, with all sorts of elegant trifles that he had never en- 
joyed, and with the ineffable seduction of yielding virtue. The 
church like a huge boudoir spread around her; the arches bent 
down to gather in the shade the confession of her love; the 
windows shone resplendent to illumine her face, and the cen- 
sers would burn that she might appear like an angel amid the 
fumes of the sweet-smelling odours. 

But she did not come. He sat down on a chair, and his 
eyes fell upon a blue stained window representing boatmen 
carrying baskets. He looked at it long, attentively, and he 
counted the scales of the fishes and the button-holes of the 
doublets, while his thoughts wandered off towards Emma. 

The beadle, standing aloof, was inwardly angry at this indi- 
vidual who took the liberty of admiring the cathedral by him- 
self. He seemed to him to be conducting himself in a mon- 
-strous fashion, to be robbing him in a sort, and almost com- 
-mitting sacrilege. 

But a rustle of silk on the flags, the tip of a bonnet, a 
lined cloak—it was she! Léon rose and ran to meet her. 

Emma was pale. She walked fast. 

“Read!” she said, holding out a paper to him. “Oh, no!” 

And she abruptly withdrew her hand to enter the chapel of 
the Virgin, where, kneeling on a chair, she began to pray. 

The young man was irritated at this bigot fancy; then he 
“nevertheless experienced a certain charm in seeing her, in 
the middle of a rendezvous, thus lost in her devotions, like 





188 MADAME BOVARY 


an Andalusian marchioness; then he grew bored, for she seemed 
never coming to an end. 

Emma prayed, or rather strove to pray, hoping that some 
sudden resolution might descend to her from heaven; and 
to draw down divine aid she filled full her eyes with the splen- 
dours of the tabernacle. She breathed in the perfumes of 
the full-blown flowers in the large vases, and listened to the 
stillness of the church, that only heightened the tumult of 
her heart. 

She rose, and they were about to leave, when the beadle 
came forward, hurriedly saying— 

“Madame, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? Ma- 
dame would like to see the curiosities of the church?” 

“Oh, no!” cried the clerk. 

“Why not?” said she. For she clung with her expiring vir- 
tue to the Virgin, the sculptures, the tombs—anything. 

Then, in order to proceed “by rule,” the beadle conducted 
them right to the entrance near the square, where, pointing 
out with his cane a large circle of block-stones without in- 
scription or carving— 

“This,” he said majestically, “is the circumference of the 
beautiful bell of Ambroise. It weighed forty thousand pounds. 
There was not its equal in all Europe. The workman who 
cast it died of the joy = 

“Let us go on,” said Léon. 

The old fellow started off again; then, having got back to 
the chapel of the Virgin, he stretched forth his arm with an 
all-embracing gesture of demonstration, and, prouder than a 
country squire showing you his espaliers, went on— 

“This simple stone covers Pierre de Brézé, lord of Varenne 
and of Brissac, grand marshal of Poitou, and governor of 
Normandy, who died at the battle of Montlhéry on the 16th 
of July, 1465.” 

Léon bit his lips, fuming. 

“And on the right, this gentleman all encased in iron, on the 
prancing horse, is his grandson, Louise de Brézé, lord of Breval 
and of Montchauvet, Count de Maulevrier, Baron de Mauny, 
chamberlain to the king, Knight of the Order, and also gov- 
ernor of Normandy; died on the 23rd of July, 1531—a Sun- 
day, as the inscription specifies; and below, this figure, about 
to descend into the tomb, portrays the same person. It is 
not possible, is it, to see a more perfect representation of annihi- 
lation?” 

Madame Bovary put up her eyeglasses. Léon, motionless, 
looked at her, no longer even attempting to speak a single 





MADAME BOVARY 189 


word, to make a gesture, so discouraged was he at this two- 
fold obstinacy of gossip and indifference. 

The everlasting guide went on— 

“Near him, this kneeling woman who weeps is his spouse, 
Diane de Poitiers, Countess de Brézé, Duchess de Valentinois, 
born in 1490, died in 1566, and to the left, the one with the 
child is the Holy Virgin. Now turn to this side; here are 
the tombs of the Ambroise. They were both cardinals and 
archbishops of Rouen. That one was minister under Louis 
XII. He did a great deal for the cathedral. In his will he 
left thirty thousand gold crowns for the poor.” 

And without stopping, still talking, he pushed them into a 
chapel full of balustrades, some put away, and disclosed a 
kind of block that certainly might once have been an ill-made 
statue. 

“Truly,” he said with a groan, “it adorned the tomb of 
Richard Coeur de Lion, King of England and Duke of Nor- 
mandy. It was the Calvinists, sir, who reduced it to this con- 
dition. They had buried it for spite in the earth, under the 
episcopal seat of Monsignor. See! this is the door by which 
Monsignor passes to his house. Let us pass on quickly to 
see the gargoyle windows.” 

But Léon hastily took some silver from his pocket and 
seized Emma’s arm. The beadle stood dumbfounded, not 
able to understand this untimely munificence when there were 
still so many things for the stranger to see. So calling him 
back, he cried— 

“Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!” 

“No, thank you!” said Léon. 

“You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty feet 
high, nine less than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast; 
Trae ee 

Léon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love, that 
for nearly two hours now had become petrified in the church 
like the stones, would vanish like a vapour through that sort 
of truncated funnel, of oblong cage, of open chimney that 
rises so grotesquely from the cathedral like the extravagant 
attempt of some fantastic brazier. 

“But where are we going?” she said. 

Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; and 
Madame Bovary was already dipping her finger in the holy 
water when behind them they heard a panting breath inter- 
rupted by the regular sound of a cane. Léon turned back. 

“Sir bez 

‘Whatois abr. 


”? 


190 MADAME BOVARY 


And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms and 
balancing against his stomach some twenty large sewn vol- 
umes. They were works “which treated of the cathedral.” 

“Tdiot!” growled Léon, rushing out of the church. 

A lad was playing about the close. 

“Go and get me a cab!” 

The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre-Vents; 
then they were alone a few minutes, face to face, and a little 
embarrassed. . 

“Ah! Léon! Really—I don’t know—if I ought,” she whis- 
pered. Then with a more serious air, “Do you know, it is 
very improper?” 

“How so?” replied the clerk. “It is done at Paris.” 

And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her. 

Still the cab did not come. Léon was afraid she might go 
back into the church. At last the cab appeared . 

“At all events, go out by the north porch,” cried the beadle, 
who was left alone. on the threshold, “so as to see the Resur- 
rection, the Last Judgment, Paradise, King David, and the 
Condemned in Hell-flames.” 

“Where to, sir?” asked the coachman. 

“Where you like,” said Léon, forcing Emma into the cab. 

And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the Rue 
Grand-Pont, crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai Napoleon, 
the Pont Neuf, and stopped short before the statue of Pierre 
Corneille. 

“Go on,” cried a voice that came from within. 

The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the Carre- 
four Lafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the station at a 
gallop. 

“No, straight on!” cried the same voice. 

The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached the 
Cours, trotted quietly beneath the elm-trees. The coachman 
wiped his brow, put his leather hat between his knees, and 
drove his carriage beyond the side alley by the meadow to 
the margin of the waters. 

It went along by the river, along the towing-path paved 
with sharp pebbles, and for a long while in the direction of 
Oyssel, beyond the isles. 

But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatremares, 
Sotteville, La Grande-Chaussée, the Rue d’Elbeuf. and made 
*ts third halt in front of the Jardin des Plantes. 

“Get on, will you?” cried the voice more furiously. 

And at once resuming its course, it passed by Saint-Sever, 
ky the Quai des Curandiers, the Quai aux Meules, once more 


MADAME BOVARY 191 


over the bridge, by the Place du Champ de Mars, and behind 
the hospital gardens, where old men in black coats were walk- 
ing in the sun along the terrace all green with ivy. It went 
up the Boulevard Bouvreuil, along the Boulevard Cauchoise, 
then the whole of Mont-Riboudet to the Deville hills. 

It came back; and then, without any fixed plan or direction, 
wandered about at hazard. The cab was seen at Saint-Pol, 
at Lescure, at Mont Gargan, at La Rougue-Marc and Place 
du Gaillardbois; in the Rue Maladrerie, Rue Dinanderie, before 
Saint-Romain, Saint-Vivien, Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise—in 
front of the Customs, at.the “Vieille Tour,” the “Trois Pipes,” 
and the Monumental Cemetery. From time to time the coach- 
man on his box cast despairing eyes at the public-houses. He 
could not understand what furious desire for locomotion urged 
these individuals never to wish to stop. He tried to now and 
then, and at once exclamations of anger burst forth behind 
him. Then he lashed his perspiring jades afresh, but indif- 
ferent to their jolting, running up agdinst things here and there, 
not caring if he did, demoralised, and almost weeping with 
thirst, fatigue, and depression. 

And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and casks, 
and in the streets, at the corners, the good folk opened large 
wonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so extraordinary in the 
provinces, a cab with blinds drawn, and which appeared thus 
constantly shut more closely than a tomb, and tossing about 
like a vessel. 

Once in the middle of the day, in the open country, just 
as the sun beat most fiercely against the old plated lanterns, 
a bared hand passed beneath the small blinds of yellow canvas, 
and threw out some scraps of paper that scattered in the wind, 
and farther off alighted like white butterflies on a field of red 
clover all in bloom. 

At about six o’clock the carriage stopped in a back street 
of the Beauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out, who walked 
with her veil down, and without turning her head. 


Wi 


N reaching the inn, Madame Bovary was surprised not to 
see the diligence. Hivert, who had waited for her fifty- 
three minutes, had at last started. 
Yet nothing forced her to go; but she had given her wora 
that she would return that same evening. Moreover, Charles 
expected her, and in her heart she felt already that cowardh, 


192 MADAME BOVARY 


docility that is for some women at once the chastisement and 
atonement of adultery. 

She packed her box quickly, paid her bill, took a cab in the 
yard, hurrying on the driver, urging him on, every moment 
inquiring about the time and the miles traversed. He _ suc- 
ceeded in catching up the “Hirondelle” as it neared the first 
houses of Quincampoix. 

Hardly was she seated in her corner than she closed her 
eyes, and opened them at the foot of the hill, when from afar 
she recognised Feélicité, who was on the look-out in front of 
the farrier’s shop. Hivert pulled in his horses, and the servant, 
climbing up to the window, said mysteriously— 

“Madame, you must go at once to Monsieur Homais. It’s 
for something important.” 

The village was silent as usual. At the corner of the streets 
were small pink heaps that smoked in the air, for this was 
the time for jam-making, and every one at Yonville prepared 
his supply on the same day. But in front of the chemist’s 
shop one might admire a far larger heap, and that surpassed 
the others with the superiority that a laboratory must have 
over ordinary stores, a general need over individual fancy. 

She went in. The large arm chair was upset, and even the 
“Fanal de Rouen” lay on the ground, outspread between two 
pestles. She pushed open the lobby door, and in the middle of 
the kitchen, amid brown jars full of picked currants, of pow- 
dered sugar and lump sugar, of the scales on the table, and 
of the pans on the fire, she saw all the Homais, small and 
large, with aprons reaching to their chins, and with forks in 
their hands. Justin was standing up with bowed head, and the 
chemist was screaming— 

“Who told you to go and fetch it in the Capharnaiim.” 

“What is it? What is the matter?” 

“What is it?” replied the druggist. “We are making pre- 
serves; they are simmering; but they were about to boil over, 
because there is too much juice, and I ordered another pan. 
Then he, from indolence, from laziness, went and took, hang- 
ing on its nail in my laboratory, the key of the Capharnaiim.” 

It was thus the druggist called a small room under the leads, 
full of the utensils and the goods of his trade. He often 
spent long hours there alone, labelling, decanting, and doing 
up again; and he looked upon it not a simple store, but as a 
veritable sanctuary, whence there afterwards issued, elaborated 
by his hands, all sorts of pills, boluses, infusions, lotions, and 
potions, that would bear far and wide his celebrity. No one 
in the world set foot there, and he respected it so, that he 


MADAME BOVARY 193 


swept it himself. Finally, if the pharmacy, open to all comers, 
was the spot where he displayed his pride, the Capharnatim was 
the refuge where, egoistically concentrating himself, Homais 
delighted in the exercise of his predilections, so that Justin’s 
thoughtlessness seemed to him a monstrous piece of irrever- 
ence, and, redder than the currants, he repeated— 

“Yes, from the Capharnaiim! The key that locks up the 
acids and caustic alkalies! To go and get a spare pan! a 
pan with a lid! and that I shall perhaps never use! Every- 
thing is of importance in the delicate operations of our art! 
But, devil take it! one must make distinctions, and not employ 
for almost domestic purposes that which is meant for phar- 
maceutical! It is as if one were to carve a fowl with a scalpel; 
as if a magistrate 4 

“Now be calm,” said Madame Homais. 

And Athalie, pulling at his coat, cried “Papa! papa!” 

“No, let me alone,” went on the druggist, “let me alone, 
hang it! My word! One might as well set up for a grocer. 
That’s it! go it! respect nothing! break, smash, let loose the 
leeches, burn the mallow-paste, pickle the gherkins in the 
window jars, tear up the bandages!” 

“T thought you had——” said Emma. 

“Presently! Do you know to what you exposed yourself? 
Didn’t you see anything in the corner, on the left, on the 
third shelf? Speak, answer, articulate something.” 

“T__don’t—know,” stammered the young fellow. 

“Ah! you don’t know! Well, then, I do know! You saw 
a bottle of blue glass, sealed with yellow wax, that contains 
a white powder, on which I have even written ‘Dangerous!’ 
And do you know what is in it? Arsenic! And you go and 
touch it! You take a pan that was next to it!” 

“Next to it!” cried Madame Homais, clasping her hands. 
“Arsenic! You might have poisoned us all.” 

And the children began howling as if they already had 
frightful pains in their entrails. 

“Or poison a patient!” continued the druggist. “Do you 
want to see me in the prisoner’s dock with criminals, in a 
court of justice? To see me dragged to the scaffold? Don’t 
you know what care I take in managing things, although I am 
so thoroughly used to it? Often I am horrified myself when 
I think of my responsibility: for the Government persecutes 
us, and the absurd legislation that rules us is a veritable Damo- 
cles’ sword over our heads.” 

Emma no longer dreamed of asking what they wanted her 
for, and the druggist went on in breathless phrases— 





194 MADAME BOVARY 


“That is your return for all the kindnesses we have shown 
you! That is how you recompense me for the really paternal 
care that I lavish on you! For without me where would you 
be? What would you be doing? Who provides you with food, 
education, clothes, and all the means of figuring one day with 
honour in the ranks of society? But you must pull hard at 
the oar if you’re to do that, and get, as, people say, callosities 
upon your hands. Fabricando fit faber, age quod agis.” 

He was so exasperated he quoted Latin. He would have 
quoted Chinese or Greenlandish had he known those two lan- 
guages, for he was in one of those crises in which the whole 
soul shows indistinctly what it contains, like the ocean, which, 
in the storm, opens itself from the seaweeds on its shores down 
to the sands of its abysses. 

And he went on— 

“T am beginning to repent terribly of having taken you up! 
I should certainly have done better to have left you to rot in 
your poverty and the dirt in which you were born. Oh, you'll 
never be fit for anything but to herd animals with horns! 
You have no aptitude for science! You hardly know how 
to stick on a label! And there you are, dwelling with me 
snug as a parson, living in clover, taking your ease!” 

But Emma, turning to Madame Homais, “I was told to 
come here " 

“Oh, dear me!” interrupted the good woman with a sad 
air, “how am I to tell you? It is a misfortune!” 

She could not finish, the druggist was thundering—‘“Empty 
it! Clean it! Take it back! Be quick!” 

And seizing Justin by the collar of his blouse, he shook a 
book out of his pocket. The lad stooped, but Homais was the 
quicker, and, having picked up the volume, contemplated it 
with staring eyes and open mouth. 

“Conjugal—love!” he said, slowly separating the two words. 
“Ah! very good! very good! very pretty! And illustrations! 
Oh, this is too much!” 

Madame Homais came forward. 

“No, do not touch it!” 

The children wanted to look at the pictures. 

“Leave the room,” he said imperiously; and they went out. 

First he walked up and down with the open volume in his 
hand, rolling his eyes, choking, tumid, apoplectic. Then he 
came straight to his pupil, and, planting himself in front of 
him with crossed arms— 

“Have you every vice, then, little wretch? Take care! you 
are on a downward path. Did not you reflect that this infa- 





MADAME BOVARY 195 


mous book might fall into the hands of my children, kindle 
a spark in their minds, tarnish the purity of Athalie, corrupt 
Napoléon. He is already formed like a man. Are you quite 
sure, anyhow, that they have not read it? Can you certify to 
Te 

“But really, sir,’ said Emma, “you wished to tell me—— 

“Ah, yes! madame. Your father-in-law is dead.” 

In fact, Monsieur Bovary senior had expired the evening 
before suddenly from an attack of apoplexy as he got up from 
table, and by way of greater precaution, on account of Emma’s 
sensibility, Charles had begged Homais to break the horrible 
news to her gradually. Homais had thought over his speech; 
he had rounded, polished it, made it rhythmical; it was a 
masterpiece of prudence and transitions, of subtle turns and 
delicacy; but anger had got the better of rhetoric. 

Emma, giving up all chance of hearing any details, left the 
pharmacy; for Monsieur Homais had taken up the thread 
of his vituperations. However, he was growing calmer, and 
was now grumbling in a paternal tone whilst he fanned himself 
with his skull-cap. 

“Tt is not that I entirely disapprove of the work. Its author 
was a doctor! There are certain scientific points in it that 
it is not ill a man should know, and I would even venture to 
say that a man must know. But later—later! At any rate, not 
till you are man yourself and your temperament is formed.” 

When Emma knocked at the door, Charles, who was wait- 
ing for her, came forward with open arms and said to her 
with tears in his voice— 

“Ah! my dear!” 

And he bent over her gently to kiss her. But at the con- 
tact of his lips the memory of the other seized her, and she 
passed her hand over her face shuddering. 

But she made answer, “Yes, I know, I know!” 

He showed her the letter in which his mother told the event 
without any sentimental hypocrisy. She only regretted her 
husband had not received the consolations of religion, as he 
had died at Daudeville, in the street, at the door of a café 
after a patriotic dinner with some ex-officers. 

Emma gave him back the letter; then at dinner, for appear- 
ance’s sake, she affected a certain repugnance. But as he urged 
her to try, she resolutely began eating, while Charles opposite 
her sat motionless in a dejected attitude. 

Now and then he raised his head and gave her a long 
look full of distress. Once he sighed, “I should have liked to 
see him again!” 


” 


196 MADAME BOVARY 


She was silent. At last, understanding that she must say 
something, “How old was your father?” she asked. 

“Fifty-eight.” 

“Ah i 

And that was all. 

A quarter of an hour after he added, “My poor mother! 
what will become of her now?” 

She made a gesture that signified she did not know. Seeing 
her so taciturn, Charles imagined her much affected, and 
forced himself to say nothing, not to reawaken this sorrow 
which moved him. And, shaking off his own—— 

“Did you enjoy yourself yesterday?” he asked. 

Sy es,"” 

When the cloth was removed, Bovary did not rise, nor did 
Emma; and as she looked at him, the monotony of the spec- 
tacle drove little by little all pity from her heart. He seemed 
to her paltry, weak, a cipher—in a word, a poor thing in every 
way. How to get rid of him? What an interminable evening! 
Something stupefying like the fumes of opium seized her. 

They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden leg 
on the boards. It was Hippolyte bringing back Emma’s lug- 
gage. In order to put it down he described painfully a quarter 
of a circle with his stump. 

“He doesn’t even remember any more about it,” she thought, 
looking at the poor devil, whose coarse red hair was wet 
with perspiration. 

Bovary was searching at the bottom of his purse for a cen- 
time, and without appearing to understand all there was of 
humiliation for him in the mere presence of this man, who stood 
there like a personified reproach to his incurable incapacity. 

“Hallo! you’ve a pretty bouquet,” he said, noticing Léon’s 
violets on the chimney. 

“Yes,” she replied indifferently; “it’s a bouquet I bought 
just now from a beggar.” 

Charles picked up the flowers, and freshening his eyes, red 
with tears, against them, smelt them delicately. 

She took them quickly from his hand and put them in a 
glass of water. 

The next day Madame Bovary senior arrived. She and her 
son wept much. Emma, on the pretext of giving orders, dis- 
appeared. The following day they had a talk over the mourn- 
ing. They went and sat down with their workboxes by the 
waterside under the arbour. 

Charles was thinking of his father, and was surprised to 

feel so much affection for this man, whom till then he nad 


MADAME BOVARY 197 


thought he cared little about. Madame Bovary senior was think- 
ing of her husband. The worst days of the past seemed enviable 
to her. All was forgotten beneath the instinctive regret of 
such a long habit, and from time to time whilst she sewed, a 
big tear rolled along her nose and hung suspended there a 
moment. Emma was thinking that it was scarcely forty-eight 
hours since they had been together, far from the world, all in 
a frenzy of joy, and not having eyes enough to gaze upon 
each other. She tried to recall the slightest details of that 
past day. But the presence of her husband and mother-in-law 
worried her. She would have liked to hear nothing, to see 
nothing, so as not to disturb the meditation on her love, that, 
do what she would, became lost in external sensations. 

She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips were 
scattered around her. Madame Bovary senior was plying her 
scissors without looking up, and Charles, in his list slippers 
‘and his old brown surtout that he used as a dressing-gown, 
‘sat with both hands in his pockets, and did not speak either; 
near them Berthe, in a little white pinafore, was raking the 
‘sand in the walks with her spade. 

Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux, the linendraper, come 
in through the gate. 

He came to offer his services “under the sad circumstances.” 
Emma answered that she thought she could do without. The 
‘shopkeeper was not be beaten. 

“T beg your pardon,” he said, “but I should like to have a 
private talk with you.” Then ir. a low voice, “It’s about that 
affair—you know.” 

Charles crimsoned to his ears. “Oh, yes! certainly.” And 
in his confusion, turning to his wife, “Couldn’t’ you, my 
darling?” 

She seemed to understand him, for she rose; and Charles 
said to his mother, “It is nothing particular. No doubt, some 
household trifle.” He did not want her to know the story 
of the bill, fearing her reproaches. 

As soon as they were alone, Monsieur Lheureux in suff- 
ciently clear terms began to congratulate Emma on the inherit- 
ance, then to talk of indifferent matters, of the espaliers, of 
the harvest, and of his own health, which was always so-so, 
always having ups and downs. In fact, he had to work devilish 
hard, although he didn’t make enough, in spite of all people 
said, to find butter for his bread. 

Emma let him talk on. She had bored herself so prodi- 
giously the last two days. 

“And so you’re quite well again?” he went on. “Ma foi! 


' 











198 MADAME BOVARY 


I saw your husband in a sad state. He’s a good fellow, though 
we did have a little misunderstanding.” 

She asked what misunderstanding, for Charles had said 
nothing of the dispute about the goods supplied to her. 

“Why, you know well enough,” cried Lheureux. “It was 
about your little fancies—the travelling trunks.” 

He had drawn his hat over his eyes, and, with his hands 
behind his back, smiling and whistling, he looked straight at 
her in an unbearable manner. Did he suspect anything? She 
was lost in all kinds of apprehensions. At last, however, he 
went on— 

“We made it up, all the same, and I’ve come again to 
propose another arrangement.” 

This was to renew the bill Bovary had signed. The doctor, 
of course, would do as he pleased; he was not to trouble 
himself, especially just now, when he would have a lot of 
worry. “And he would do better to give it over to some one 
else,—to you, for example. With a power of attorney it could 
be easily managed, and then we (you and I) would have our 
little business transactions together.” 

She did not understand. He was silent. Then, passing to 
his trade, Lheureux declared that madame must require some- 
thing. He would send her a black barége, twelve yards, just 
enough to make a gown. 

“The one you’ve on is good enough for the house, but you 
want another for calls. I saw that the very moment that I 
came in. I’ve the eye of an American!” 

He did not send the stuff; he brought it. Then he came 
again to measure it; he came again on other pretexts, always 
trying to make himself agreeable, useful, “enfeofing him- 
self,” as Homais would have said, and always dropping some 
hint to Emma about the power of attorney. He never men- 
tioned the bill; she did not think of it. Charles, at the 
beginning of her convalescence, had certainly said something 
about it to her, but so many emotions had passed through her 
head that she no longer remembered it. Besides, she took care 
not to talk of any money questions. Madame Bovary seemed 
surprised at this, and attributed the change in her ways to the 
religious sentiments she had contracted during her illness. 

But as soon as she was gone, Emma greatly astounded Bo- 
vary by her practical good sense. It would be necessary to 
make inquiries, to look into mortgages, and see if there were 
any occasion for a sale by auction or a liquidation. She quoted 
technical terms casually, pronounced the grand words of order, 
the future, foresight, and constantly exaggerated the difficulties 


MADAME BOVARY 199 


of settling his father’s affairs so much, that at last one day 
she showed him the rough draft of a power of attorney to 
manage and administer his business, arrange all loans, sign and 
endorse all bills, pay all sums, &c. She had profited by 
Lheureux’s lessons. 

Charles naively asked her where this paper came from. 

“Monsieur Guillaumin;” and with the utmost coolness she 
added, “I don’t trust him overmuch. Notaries have such a 
bad reputation. Perhaps we ought to consult——we only 
know—no one.” 

“Unless Léon——” replied Charles, who was reflecting. 

But it was difficult to explain matters by letter. Then she 
offered to make the journey, but he thanked her. She insisted. 
It was quite a contest of mutual consideration. At last she 
cried with affected waywardness— 

“No, I will go!” 

“How good you are!” he said, kissing her forehead. 

The next morning she set out in the “Hirondelle” to go to 
Rouen to consult Monsieur Léon, and she stayed there three 
days. 


” 


III 


THEY were three full, exquisite days—a true honeymoon. 

They were at the Hotel-de-Boulogne, on the harbour; 
and they lived there, with drawn blinds and closed doors, with 
flowers on the floor, and iced syrups that were brought them 
early in the morning. 

Towards evening they took a covered boat and went to dine 
on one of the islands. It was the time when one hears by the 
side of the dockyard the caulking-mallets sounding against the 
hull of vessels. The smoke of the tar rose up between the 
trees; there were large fatty drops on the water, undulating in 
the purple colour of the sun, like floating plaques of Florentine 
bronze. 

They rowed down in the midst of moored boats, whose long 
oblique cables grazed lightly against the bottom of the boat. 
The din of the town gradually grew distant; the rolling of 
carriages, the tumult of voices, the yelping of dogs on the 
decks of vessels. She took off her bonnet, and they landed 
on their island. 

They sat down in the low-ceilinged room of a tavern, at 
whose door hung black nets. They ate fried smelts, cream and 
cherries. They lay down upon the grass; they kissed behind 
the poplars; and they would fain, like two Robinsons, have 


200 MADAME BOVARY 


lived for ever in this little place, which seemed to them in their 
beatitude the most magnificent on earth. It was not the first 
time that they had seen trees, a blue sky, meadows; that they 
had heard the water flowing and the wind blowing in the 
leaves; but, no doubt, they had never admired all this, as if 
Nature had not existed before, or had only begun to be beau- 
tiful since the gratification of their desires. 

At night they returned. The boat glided along the shores 
of the islands. They sat at the bottom, both hidden by the 
shade, in silence. The square oars rang in the iron thwarts, 
and, in the stillness, seemed to mark time, like the beating of 
a metronome, while at the stern the rudder that trailed behind 
never ceased its gentle splash against the water. 

Once the moon rose; then they did not fail to make fine 
phrases, finding the orb melancholy and full of poetry. She 
even began to sing— 


“One night, do you remember, we were sailing,” &c. 


Her musical but weak voice died away along the waves, 
and the winds carried off the trills that Léon heard pass like 
the flapping of wings about him. 

She was opposite him, leaning against the partition of the 
shallop, through one of whose raised blinds the moon streamed 
in. Her black dress, whose drapery spread out like a fan, 
made her seem more slender, taller. Her head was raised, her 
hands clasped, her eyes turned towards heaven. At times the 
shadow of the willows hid her completely; then she reappeared 
suddenly, like a vision in the moonlight. 

Léon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a ribbon 
of scarlet silk. The boatman looked at it, and at last said— 

“Perhaps it belongs to the party I took out the other day. 
A lot of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes, cham- 
pagne, cornets—everything in style! There was one espe- 
cially, a tall handsome man with small moustaches, who was 
that funny! And they all kept saying, ‘Now tell us something, 
Adolphe—Dolpe,’ I think.” 

She shivered. 

“You are in pain?” asked Léon, coming closer to her. 

“Oh, it’s nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air.” 

“And who doesn’t want for women, either,” softly added the 
sailor, thinking he was paying the stranger a compliment. 

Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again. 

Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He was to 
send his letters to Mére Rollet, and she gave him such precise 


MADAME BOVARY 201 


instructions about a double envelope that he admired greatly 
her amorous astuteness. 

“So you can assure me it is all right?” she said with her 
last kiss. 

“Yes, certainly.” 

“But why,” he thought afterwards as he came back through 


the streets alone, “is she so very anxious to get this power of -~ 


attorney?” 
IV 


[ £ON soon put on an air of superiority before his com- 
rades, avoided their company, and completely neglected 
his work. 

He waited for her letters; he re-read them; he wrote to 
her. He called her to mind with all the strength of his de- 
sires and of his memories. Instead of lessening with absence, 
this longing to see her again grew, so that at last on Satur- 
day morning he escaped from his office. 

When, from the summit of the hill, he saw in the valley 
below the church-spire with its tin flag swinging in the wind, 
he felt that delight mingled with triumphant vanity and egoistic 
tenderness that millionaires must experience when they come 
back to their native village. 

He went rambling round her house. A light was burning 
in the kitchen. He watched for her shadow behind the cur- 
tails, but nothing appeared. 

Mére Lefrangois, when she saw him, uttered many exclama- 
tions. She thought he “had grown and was thinner,” while 
Artémise, on the contrary, thought him stouter and darker. 

He dined in the little room as of yore, but alone, without 
the tax-gatherer; for Binet, tired of waiting for the “Hiron- 
delle,” had definitely put forward his meal one hour, and 
now he dined punctually at five, and yet he declared usually the 
rickety old concern “was late.” 

Léon, however, made up his mind, and knocked at the 
-doctor’s door. Madame was in her room, and did not come 
down for a quarter of an hour. The doctor seemed delighted 
to see him, but he never stirred out that evening, nor all the 
next day. 

He saw her alone in the evening, very late, behind the oor- 
den in the lane;—in the lane, as she had the other one! It was 
a stormy night, and they talked under an umbrella by light- 
nine flashes. 

Their separation was becoming intolerable. “I would rather 


—* 


202 MADAME BOVARY 


die!” said Emma. She was writhing in his arms, weeping. 
“Adieu! adieu! When shall I see you again?” 

They came back again to embrace once more, and it was 
then that she promised him to find soon, by no matter what 
means, a regular opportunity for seeing one another in freedom 
at least once a week. Emma never doubted she should be able 
to do this. Besides, she was full of hope. Some money was 
coming to her. 

On the strength of it she bought a pair of yellow curtains 
with large stripes for her room, whose cheapness Monsieur 
Lheureux had commended; she dreamed of getting a carpet, 
and Lheureux, declaring that it wasn’t “drinking the sea,” 
politely undertook to supply her with one. She could no 
longer do without his services. Twenty times a day she sent 
for him, and he at once put by his business without a murmur. 
People could not understand either why Mere Rollet break- 
fasted with her every day, and even paid her private visits. 

It was about this time, that is to say, the beginning of winter, 
that she seemed seized with great musical fervour. 

One evening when Charles was listening to her, she began 
the same piece four times over, each time with much vexa- 
tion, while he, not noticing any difference, cried— 

“Bravo! very good! You are wrong to stop. Go on!” 

“Oh, no; it is execrable! My fingers are quite rusty.” 

The next day he begged her to play him something again. 

“Very well; to please you!” 

And Charles confessed she had gone off a little. She played 
wrong notes and blundered; then, stopping short—— 

“Ah! it is no use. I ought to take some lessons; but——’ 
She bit her lips and added, “Twenty francs a lesson, that’s 
too dear!” 

“Yes, so it is—rather,” said Charles, giggling stupidly. “But 
it seems to me that one might be able to do it for less; for 
there are artists of no reputation, and who are often better 
than the celebrities.” 

“Find them!” said Emma. 

The next day when he came home he looked at her shyly, 
and at last could no longer keep back the words. 

“How obstinate you are sometimes! I went to Barfuchéres 
to-day. Well, Madame Liégard assured me that her three 
young ladies who are at La Miséricorde have lessons at fifty 
sous apiece, and that from an excellent mistress!” 

She shrugged her shoulders and did not open her piano 
again. But when she passed by it (if Bovary were there). 
she sighed— 


? 


MADAME BOVARY 203 


“Ah! my poor piano!” 

And when any one came to see her, she did not fail to 
inform them that she had given up music, and could not 
begin again now for important reasons. Then people com- 
miserated her—— 

“What a pity! she had so much talent!” 

They even spoke to Bovary about it. They put him to shame, 
and especially the chemist. 

“You are wrong. One should never let any of the faculties 
of nature lie fallow. Besides, just think, my good friend, that 
by inducing madame to study, you are economising on the 
subsequent musical education of your child. For my own part, 
I think that mothers ought themselves to instruct their chil- 
dren. That is an idea of Rousseau’s, still rather new perhaps, 
but that will end by triumphing, I am certain of it, like mothers 
nursing their own children and vaccination.” 

So Charles returned once more to this question of the piano. 
Emma replied bitterly that it would be better to sell it. This 
poor piano, that had given her vanity so much satisfaction— 
to see it go was to Bovary like the indefinable suicide of a 
part of herself. 

“If you liked,” he said, “a lesson from time to time, that 
wouldn’t after all be very ruinous.” 

“But lessons,” she replied, “are only of use when followed 
up.” 

And thus it was she set about obtaining her husband’s per- 
mission to go to town once a week to see her lover. At the end 
of a month she was even considered to have made consid- 
erable progress. 


Vv 


SG HE went on Thursdays. She got up and dressed silently, 

in order not to awaken Charles, who would have made 
remarks about her getting ready too early. Next she walked 
up and down, went to the windows, and looked out at the 
Place. The early dawn was broadening betweeen the pillars of 
the market, and the chemist’s shop, with the shutters still up, 
showed in the pale light of the dawn the large letters of his 
signboard. 

When the clock pointed to a quarter past seven, she went off 
to the “Lion d’Or,” whose door Artémise opened yawning. The 
girl then made up the coals covered by the cinders, and Emma 
temained alone in the kitchen. Now and again she went out. 
Yivert was leisurely harnessing his horses, listening, more- 


204 MADAME BOVARY 


over, to Mére Lefrancois, who, passing her head and night- 
cap through a grating, was charging him with commissions 
and giving him explanations that would have confused any 
one else. Emma kept beating the soles of her boots against 
the pavement of the yard. 

At last, when he had eaten his soup, put on his cloak, lighted 
his pipe, and grasped his whip, he calmly installed himself 
on his seat. 

The “Hirondelle” started at a slow trot, and for about a 
mile stopped here and there to pick up passengers who waited 
for it, standing at the border of the road, in front of their 
yard gates. 

Those who had secured seats the evening before kept it 
waiting; some even were still in bed in their houses. Hivert 
called, shouted, swore; then he got down from his seat and went 
and knocked loudly at the doors. The wind blew through the 
cracked windows. 

The four seats, however, filled up. The carriage rolled off; 
rows of apple-trees followed one upon another, and the road be- 
tween its two long ditches, full of yellow water, rose, constantly 
narrowing towards the horizon. 

Emma knew it from end to end; she knew that after a 
meadow there was a sign-post, next an elm, a barn, or the hut 
of a lime-kiln tender. Sometimes even, in the hope of getting 
some surprise, she shut her eyes, but she never lost the clear 
perception of the distance to be traversed. 

At last the brick houses began to follow one another more 
closely, the earth resounded beneath the wheels, the “Hiron- 
delle” glided between the gardens, where through an opening 
one saw statues, a periwinkle plant, clipped yews, and a swing. 
Then on a sudden the town appeared. Sloping down like an 
amphitheatre, and drowned in the fog, it widened out beyond the 
bridges confusedly. Then the open country spread away with 
a monotonous movement till it touched in the distance the vague 
line of the pale sky. Seen thus from above, the whole land- 
scape looked immovable as a picture; the anchored ships were 
massed in one corner, the river curved round the foot of the 
green hills, and the isles, oblique in shape, lay on the water, 
like large, motionless, black fishes. The factory chimneys belched 
forth immense brown fumes that were blown away at the top. 
One heard the rumbling of the foundries, together with the — 
clear chimes of the churches that stood out in the mist. The 
leafless trees on the boulevards made violet thickets in the midst 
of the houses, and the roofs, all shining with the rain, threw | 
back unequal reflections, according to the height of the quarters 


MADAME BOVARY 205 


in which they were. Sometimes a gust of wind drove the clouds 
towards the Saint Catherine hills, like aerial waves that broke 
silently against a cliff. 

A giddiness seemed to her to detach itself from this mass 
of existence, and her heart swelled as if the hundred and 
twenty thousand souls that palpitated there had all at once 
sent into it the vapour of the passions she fancied theirs. Her 
love grew in the presence of this vastness, and expanded with 
tumult to the vague murmurings that rose towards her. She 
poured it out upon the square, on the walks, on the streets, and 
the old Norman city outspread before her eyes as an enormous 
capital, as a Babylon into which she was entering. She leant 
with both hands against the window, drinking in the breeze; 
the three horses galloped, the stones grated in the mud, the dili- 
gence rocked, and Hivert, from afar, hailed the carts on the 
road, while the bourgeois who had spent the night at the Guil- 
laume woods came quietly down the hill in their little family 
carriages. 

They stopped at the barrier; Emma undid her overshoes, put 
on other gloves, rearranged her shawl, and some twenty paces 
farther she got down from the “Hirondelle.” 

The town was then awakening. Shop-boys in caps were 
cleaning up the shop-fronts, and women, with baskets against 
their hips, at intervals uttered sonorous cries at the corners 
of streets. She walked with downcast eyes, close to the walls, 
and smiling with pleasure under her lowered black veil. 

For fear of being seen, she did not usually take the most 
direct road. She plunged into dark alleys, and, all perspiring, 
reached the bottom of the Rue Nationale, near the fountain 
that stands there. It is the quarter for theatres, public-houses, 
and whores. Often a cart would pass near her, bearing some 
shaking scenery. Waiters in aprons were sprinkling sand on the 
flagstones between green shrubs. It all smelt of absinthe, cigars, 
and oysters. 

She turned down a street; she recognised him by his curling 
hair that escaped from beneath his hat. 

Léon walked along the pavement. She followed him to the 
hotel. He went up, opened the door, entered——- What an em- 
brace! 

Then, after the kisses, the words gushed forth. They told 


gach other the sorrows of the week, the presentiments, the 


anxiety for the letters; but now everything was forgotten; 
they gazed into each other’s faces with voluptuous laughs, and 


tender names. 
The bed was large, of mahogany, in the shape of a boat. 


206 MADAME BOVARY 


The curtains were in red levantine, that hung from the ceil- 
ing and bulged out too much towards the bell-shaped bedside; 
and nothing in the world was so lovely as her brown head and 
white skin standing out against this purple colour, when, with 
a movement of shame, she crossed her bare arms, hiding her 
face in her hands. 

The warm room, with its discreet carpet, its gay ornaments, 
and its calm light, seemed made for the intimacies of passion. 
The curtain-rods, ending in arrows, their brass pegs, and the 
great balls of the fire-dogs shone suddenly when the sun came 
in. On the chimney between the candelabra there were two of 
those pink shells in which one hears the murmur of the sea if 
one holds them to the ear. 

How they loved that dear room, so full of gaiety, despite 
its rather faded splendour! They always found the furniture 
in the same nlace, and sometimes hairpins, that she had forgotten 
the Thursday before, under the pedestal of the clock. They 
lunched by the fireside on a little sound table, inlaid with rose- 
'wood. Emma carved, ut bits on his plate with all sorts of 
coquettish ways, and she laughed with a sonorous and libertine 
laugh when the froth Uf thc champagne ran over from the glass 
to the rings on her fingers. They were so completely lost in 
the possession of each other chat they thought themselves :n 
their own house, and that they would live there till death, like 
two spouses eternally young. They said “our room,” “our car- 
pet,” she even said “:>-y wlippers,” a gift of Léon’s, a whim she 
had had. They were pink satin, dDordered with swansdown. 
When she sat on his knees, her leg, then too shurt, hung in the 
air, and the dainty shoe, that had no back to it, was held in 
only by the toes to her bare foot. 

He for the first time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy of 
feminine refinements. He had never met this grace of language, 
this reserve of clothing, these poses of the weary dove. He 
admired the exaltation of her soul and the lace on her petticoat. 
Besides, was she not “a lady” and a married woman—a real 
mistress, in fine? 

By the diversity of her humour, in turn mystical or mirth- 
ful, talkative, taciturn, passionate, careless, she awakened in 
him a thousand desires, called up instincts or memories. She 
was the mistress of all the novels, the heroine of all the dramas, 
the vague “she” of all the volumes of verse. He found 
again on her shoulder the amber colouring of the “odalisque 
bathing ;” she had the long waist of feudal chatelaines, and she 
resembled the “pale woman of Barcelona.” But above all she 
was the Angel! 


MADAME BOVARY 207 


Often looking at her, it seemed to him that his soul, escaping 
towards her, spread like a wave about the outline of her head, 
and descended drawn down into the whiteness of her breast. 
He knelt on the ground before her, and with both elbows on her 
knees looked at her with a smile, his face upturned. 

She bent over him, and murmured, as if choking with in- 
toxication— 

“Oh, do not move! do not speak! look at me! Something 
so sweet comes from your eyes that helps me so much!” 

She called him “child.” “Child, do you love me?” 

And she did not listen for his answer in the haste of her lips 
that fastened to his mouth. 

On the clock there was a bronze cupid, who smirked as he 
bent his arm beneath a golden garland. They had laughed at it 
many a time, but when they had to part everything seemed seri- 
ous to them. 

Motionless in front of each other, they kept repeating, “Till 
Thursday, till Thursday.” 

Suddenly she seized his head between her hands, kissed him 
hurriedly on the forehead, crying, “Adieu!” and rushed down 
the stairs. 

She went to a hairdresser’s in the Rue de la Comédie to 
have her hair arranged. Night fell; the gas was lighted in the 
shop. She heard the bell at the theatre calling the mummers 
to the performance, and she saw, passing opposite, men with 
white faces and women in faded gowns going in at the stage- 
door. 

It was hot in the room, small, and too low, where the stove 
was hissing in the midst of wigs and pommades. The smell 
of the tongs. together with the greasy hands that handled her 
head, soon stunned her, and she dozed a little in her wrapper. 
Often, as he did her hair, the man offered her tickets for a 
masked ball. 

Then she went away. She went up the streets; reached the 
Croix-Rouge, put on her overshoes, that she had hidden in the 
morning under the seat, and sank into her place among the 
impatient passengers. Some got out at the foot of the hill. She 
remained alone in the carriage. At every turning all the lights 
of the town were seen more and more completely, making a 
great luminous vapour about the dim houses. Emma knelt on 
the cushions, and her eyes wandered over the dazzling light. 
She sobbed; called on Léon, sent him tender words and kisses 
lost in the wind. 

On the hillside a poor devil wandered about with his stick 
in the midst of the diligences. A mass of rags covered his 


208 MADAME BOVARY 


shoulders, and an old staved-in beaver, turned out like a basin, 
hid his face; but when he took it off he discovered in the place 
of eyelids empty and bloody orbits. The flesh hung in red 
shreds, and there flowed from it liquids that congealed into green 
scales down to the nose, whose black nostrils sniffed convulsively. 
To speak to you he threw back his head with an idiotic laugh; 
then his blueish eyeballs, rolling constantly, at the temples beat 
against the edge of the open wound. He sang a little song as 
be followed the carriages— 


“Maids in the warmth of a summer day 
Dream of love, and of love alway.” 


And all the rest was about birds and sunshine and green leaves. 

Sometimes he appeared suddenly behind Emma, bareheaded, 
and she drew back with a cry. Hivert made fun of him. He 
would advise him to get 2 booth at the Saint Romain fair, or 
else ask him, laughing, how his young woman was. 


Often they had started when, with a sudden movement, his 


at entered the diligence through the small window, while he 
clung with his other arm to the footboard, between the wheels 
splashing mud. His voice, feeble at first and quavering, grew 
sharp; it resounded in the night like the indistinct moan of a 
vague distress; and through the ringing of the bells, the murmur 
of the trees, and the rumbling of the empty vehicle, it had a 
far-off sound that disturbed Emma. It went to the bottom of 
her soul, like a whirlwind in an abyss, and carried her away 
into the distances of a boundless melancholy. But Hivert, no- 
ticing a weight behind, gave the blind man sharp cuts with his 
whip. The thong lashed his wounds, and he fell back into the 


| mud with a yell. Then the passengers in the “Hirondelle” 


-nded by falling asleep, some with open mouths, others with 
-owerced chins, leaning against their neighbour’s shoulder, or 
with their arm passed through the strap, oscillating regularly 
iwith the jolting of the carriage; and the reflection of the lan- 
\tern swinging without, on the crupper of the wheeler, penetrat- 
Ge into the interior through the chocolate calico curtains, threw 
anguineous shadows over all these motionless people. Emma, 
drunk with grief, shivered in her clothes, feeling her feet grow 
colder and colder, and death in her soul. 

Charles at home was waiting for her; the “Hirondelle” was 
always late on Thursdays. Madame arrived at last, and scarcely 
kissed the child. The dinner was not ready. No matter! She 
excused the servant. This girl now seemed allowed to do just 
as she liked. | 


MADAME BOVARY 209 


Often her husband, noting her pallor, asked if she were un- 
well. 

“No,” said Emma. 

“But,” he replied, “you seem so strange this evening.” 

“Oh, it’s nothing! nothing!” 

There were even days when she had no sooner come in than 
she went up to her room; and Justin, happening to be there, 
moved about noiselessly, quicker at helping her than the best 
of maids. He put the matches ready, the candlestick, a book, 
arranged her nightgown, turned back the bedclothes. 

“Come!” said she, “that will do. Now you can go.” 

For he stood there, his hands hanging down and his eyes 
wide open, as if enmeshed in the innumerable threads of a 
sudden reverie. 

The following day was frightful, and those that came after 
still more unbearable, because of her impatience to once again 
seize her happiness; an ardent lust, inflamed by the images 
of past experience, and that burst forth freely on the seventh 
day beneath Léon’s caresses. His ardours were hidden beneath 
outbursts of wonder and gratitude. Emma tasted this love in 
a discreet, absorbed fashion, maintained it by all the artifices of 
her tenderness, and trembled a little lest it should be lost later 
on. 
She often said to him, with her sweet, melancholy voice— 

“Ah! you too, you will leave me! You will marry! You 
will be like all the others.” 

He asked, “What others?” 

“Why, like all men,” she replied. Then added, repulsing him 
with a languid movement— 

“You are all evil!” 

One day, as they were talking philosophically of earthly dis- 
illusions, to experiment on his jealousy, or yielding, perhaps, 
to an over-strong need to pour out her heart, she told him that 
formerly, before him, she had loved some one. “Not like you,” 
she went on quickly, protesting by the head of her child that 
“nothing had passed between them.” 

The young man believed her, but none the less questioned her 
to find out what he was. 

“Fle was a ship’s captain, my dear.” 

Was this not preventing any inquiry, and, at the same time, 
-assuming a higher ground through this pretended fascination 
exercised over a man who must have been of warlike nature 
-and accustomed to receive homage? 

_ The clerk then felt the lowliness of his position; he longed 


210 MADAME BOVARY 


_ for epaulettes, crosses, titles. All that would please her,—he 
| gathered that from her spendthrift habits. 

Emma nevertheless concealed many of these extravagant 
fancies, such as her wish to have a blue tilbury to drive into 
Rouen, drawn by an English horse and driven by a groom in 
top-boots. It was Justin who had inspired her with this whim, 
by begging her to take him into her service as valet-de-chambre, 
and if the privation of it did not lessen the pleasure of her 
_ arrival at each rendezvous, it certainly augmented the bitterness 
of the return. 

Often, when they talked together of Paris, she ended by mur- 
muring, “Ah! how happy we should be there!” 

“Are we not happy?” gently answered the young man, passing 
his hands over her hair. 

“Yes, that is true,” she said. “I am mad. Kiss me!” 

To her husband she was more charming than ever. She 
made him pistachio-creams and played him waltzes after din- 
ner. So he thought himself the most fortunate of men, and 
Emma was without uneasiness, when, one evening, suddenly he 
said— 

“Tt is Mademoiselle Lempereur, isn’t it, who gives you les- 
sons?” 

mY ec *? 

“Well, I saw her just now,” Charles went on, “at Madame 
Liégeard’s. I spoke to her about you, and she doesn’t know 
you.” 

This was like a thunderclap. However, she replied quite 
naturally— 

“Ah! no doubt she forgot my name.” 

“But perhaps,” said the doctor, “there are several Demoiselles 
Lempereur at Rouen who are music-mistresses.” 

“Possibly!” Then quickly—“But I have my receipts here. 
See!” 

And she went to the writing-table, ransacked all the drawers, 
rummaged the papers, and at last lost her head so completely 
that Charles earnestly begged her not to take so much trouble 
about those wretched receipts. 

“Oh, I will find them,” she said. 

And, in fact, on the following Friday, as Charles was putting 
on one of his boots in the dark cabinet where his clothes were 
kept, he felt a piece of paper between the leather and his sock. 
He took it out and read— 

“Received, for three months’ lessons and several pieces of 
music, the sum of sixty-three francs.—FELICIE LEMPEREUR, pro- 
fessor of music.” 


MADAME BOVARY 211 


“How the devil did it get into my boots?” 

“It must,” she replied, “have fallen from the old box of bills 
that is on the edge of the shelf.” 

From that moment her existence was but one long tissue of 
lies, in which she enveloped her love as in veils to hide it. It 
was a want, a mania, a pleasure carried to such an extent that 
if she said she had the day before walked on the right side 
of a road, one might know she had taken the left. 

One morning, when she had gone, as usual, rather lightly 
clothed, it suddenly began to snow, and as Charles was watch- 
ing the weather from the window, he caught sight of Monsieur 
Bournisien in the chaise of Monsieur Tuvache, who was driving 
him to Rouen. Then he went down to give the priest a thick 
shawl that he was to hand over to Emma as soon as he reached 
the “Croix-Rouge.” When he got to the inn, Monsieur Bourn- 
isien asked for the wife of the Yonville doctor. The landlady 
replied that she very rarely came to her establishment. So that 
evening, when he recognised Madame Bovary in the “Hiron- 
delle,” the curé told her his dilemma, without, however, appear- 
ing to attach much importance to it, for he began praising a 
preacher who was doing wonders at the Cathedral, and whom 
all the ladies were rushing to hear. 

Still, if he did not ask for any explanation, others, later on, 
might prove less discreet. So she thought wel! to get cown 
each time at the “Croix-Rouge,” so that the good folk of her 
village who saw her on the stairs should suspect nothing. 

One day, however, Monsieur Lheureux met her coming out of 
the Hotel de Boulogne on Léon’s arm; and she was frightened, 
thinking he would gossip. He was not such a fool. But three 
days after he came to her room, shut the door, and said, “I 
must have some money.” 

She declared she could not give him any. Lheureux burst 
into lamentations, and reminded her of all the kindnesses he had 
shown her. 

In fact, of the two bills signed by Charles, Emma up to the 
present had paid only one. As to the second, the shop-keeper, 
at her request, had consented to replace it by another, which 
again had been renewed for a long date. Then he drew from 
his pocket a list of goods not paid for; to wit, the curtains, the 
carpet, the material for the arm-chairs, several dresses, and 
divers articles of dress, the bills for which amounted to about 
two thousand francs. 

She bowed her head. He went on— 

“But if you haven’t any ready money, you have an estate. 
find he reminded her of a miserable little hovel situated at 


> 


212 MADAME BOVARY 


Barneville, near Aumale, that brought in almost nothing. It had 
formerly been part of a small farm sold by Monsieur Bovary 
senior; for Lheureux knew everything, even to the number of 
acres and the names of the neighbours. 

“Tf I were in your place,” he said, “I should clear myself of 
my debts, and have some money left over.” 

She pointed out the difficulty of getting a purchaser. He 
held out the hope of finding one; but she asked him how she 
should manage to sell it. 

“Haven’t you your power of attorney?” he replied. 

‘The phrase came to her like a breath of fresh air. “Leave 
me the bill,” said Emma. 

“Oh, it isn’t worth while,” answered Lheureux. 

He came back the following week and boasted of having, 
after much trouble, at last discovered a certain Langlois, who, 
for a long time, had had an eye on the property, but without 
mentioning his price. 

“Never mind the price!” she cried. 

But they would, on the contrary, have to wait, to sound the 
fellow. The thing was worth a journey, and, as she could not 
undertake it, he offered to go to the place to have an inter- 
view with Langlois. On his return he announced that the pur- 
chaser proposed four thousand francs. 
~ Emma was radiant at this news. 

“Frankly,” he added, “that’s a good price.” 

She drew half the sum at once, and when she was about to 
pay her account the shopkeeper said— 

“Tt really grieves me, on my word! to see you depriving your- 
self all at once of such a big sum as that.” 

Then she looked at the bank-notes, and dreaming of the 
unlimited number of rendezvous) represented by those two 
thousand francs, she stammered— 

“What! what!” 

“Oh!” he went on, laughing good-naturedly, “one puts any- 
thing one likes on receipts. Don’t you think I know what 
household affairs are?” And he looked at her fixedly, while in 
his hand he held two long papers that he slid between his nails. 
At last, opening his pocket-book, he spread out on the table 
four bills to order, each for a thousand francs. 

“Sign these,” he said, “and keep it all!” 

She cried out, scandalised. 

“But if I give you the surplus,” replied Monsieur Lheureux 
impudently, “is not that helping you?” 

And taking a pen he wrote at the bottom of the account, “Re« 
ceived of Madame Bovary four thousand francs.” 


” 
! 


MADAME BOVARY 213 


“Now who can trouble you, since in six months you'll draw 
the arrears for your cottage, and I don’t make the last bill due 
till after you’ve been paid?” 

Emma grew rather confused in her calculations, and her ears 
tingled as if gold pieces, bursting from their bags, rang ali 
round her on the floor. At last Lheureux explained that he 
had a very good friend, Vincart, a broker at Rouen, who would 
discount these four bills. Then he himself would hand over to 
madame the remainder after the actual debt was paid. 

But instead of two thousand francs“he brought only eighteen 
hundred, for the friend Vingart (which was only fair) had 
deducted two hundred francs for commission and discount. 
Then he carelessly asked for a receipt. 

“You understand—in business—sometimes. And with the date, 
if you please, with the date.” 

_ A horizon of realisable whims opened out before Emma. She 
was prudent enough to lay by a thousand crowns, with which 
the first three bills were paid when they fell due; but the fourth, 
by chance, came to the house on a Thursday, and Charles, quite 
upset, patiently awaited his wife’s return for an explanation. 
_ If she had not told him about this bill, it was only to spare 
him such domestic worries; she sat on his knees, caressed him, 
cooed to him, gave a long enumeration of all the indispensable 
things that had been got on credit. 
_ “Really, you must confess, considering the quantity, it isn’t 
too dear.” 
| Charles, at his wit’s end, soon had recourse to the eternal 
‘Lheureux, who swore he would arrange matters if the doctor 
would sign him two bills, one of which was for seven hundred 
francs, payable in three months. In order to arrange for this 
ne wrote his mother a pathetic letter. Instead of sending a reply 
she came herself; and when Emma wanted to know whether 
ae had got anything out of her, “Yes,” he replied; “but she 
wants to see the account.” The next morning at daybreak 
kmma ran to Lheureux to beg him to make out another ac- 
count for not more than a thousand francs, for to show the one 
for four thousand it would be necessary to say that she hac 
»aid two-thirds, and confess, consequently, the sale of the estate 
—a negotiation admirably carried out by the shopkeeper, and 
which, in fact, was only actually known later on. 

Despite the low price of each article, Madame Bovary senior 
»9f course thought the expenditure extravagant. 

“Couldn’t you do without a carpet? Why have re-covered 
he arm-chairs? In my time there was a single arm-chair in a 
louse, for elderly persons,—at any rate it was so at my moth- 


—_——— 1 








Le 


214 MADAME BOVARY 


er’s, who was a good woman, I can tell you. Everybody can’t 
be rich! No fortune can hold out against waste! I should be 
ashamed to coddle myself as you do! And yet I am old. I 
need looking after. And there! there! fitting up gowns! fallals! 
What! silk for lining at two francs, when you can get jaconet 
for ten sous, or even for eight, that would do well enough!” 

Emma, lying on a lounge, replied as quietly as possible—‘Ah!} 
Madame, enough! enough!” 

The other went on lecturing her, predicting they would end 
in the workhouse. But it was Bovary’s fault. Luckily he had 
promised to destroy that power of attorney. 

“What?” 

“Ah! he swore he would,” went on the good woman. 

Emma opened the window, called Charles, and the poor 
fellow was obliged to confess the promise torn from him by 
his mother. 

Emma disappeared, then came back quickly, and majestically 
handed her a thick piece of paper. 

“Thank you,” said the old woman. And she threw the power 
of attorney into the fire. 

Emma began to laugh, a strident, piercing, continuous laugh; 
she had an attack of hysterics. 

“Oh, my God!” cried Charles. “Ah! you really are wrong! 
You come here and make scenes with her!” 

His mother, shrugging her shoulders, declared it was “all put 

on.” 
But Charles, rebelling for the first time, took his wife’s part, 
so that Madame Bovary senior said she would leave. She 
went the very next day, and on the threshold, as he was trying 
to detain her, she replied— 

“No, no! You love her better than me, and you are right. 
It is natural. For the rest, so much the worse! You will see. 
Good day—for I am not likely to come soon again, as you say, 
to make scenes.” 

Charles nevertheless was very crestfallen before Emma, who 
did not hide the resentment she still felt at his want of confi- 
dence, and it needed many prayers before she would consent 
to have another power of attorney. He even accompanied her 
to Monsieur Guillaumin to have a second one, just like the 
other, drawn up. 

“T understand,” said the notary; “a man of science can’t be 
wotried with the practical details of life.” 

And Charles felt relieved by this comfortable reflection, which 
gave his weakness the flattering appearance of higher pre- 
occupation. 





MADAME BOVARY 215 


And what an outburst the next Thursday at the hotel in their 
| ve with Léon! She laughed, cried, sang, sent for sherbets, 
wanted to smoke cigarettes, seemed to him wild and extrava- 
gant, but adorable, superb. 

He did not know what recreation of her whole being drove 
her more and more to plunge into the pleasures of life. She 
was becoming irritable, greedy, voluptuous; and she walked 
about the streets with him carrying her head high, without 
fear, so she said, of compromising herself. At times, however, 
| Emma shuddered at the sudden thought of meeting Rodolphe, 
for it seemed to her that, although they were separated forever, 
she was not completely free from her subjugation to him. 

One night she did not return to Yonville at all. Charles 
lost his head with anxiety, and little Berthe would not go to 
bed without her mamma, and sobbed enough to break her 
heart. Justin had gone out searching the road at random. 
Monsieur Homais even had left his pharmacy. 

_ At last, at eleven o’clock, able to bear it no longer, Charles 
-harnessed his chaise, jumped in, whipped up his horse, and 
reached the “Croix-Rouge” about two o’clock in the morning. 
No one there! He thought that the clerk had perhaps seen her; 
but where did he live? Happily, Charles remembered his em- 
ployer’s address, and rushed off there. 

_ Day was breaking, and he could distinguish the escutcheons 
over the door, and knocked. Some one, without opening the 
‘door, shouted out the required information, adding a few 
insults to those who disturb people in the middle of the night. 
| The house inhabited by the clerk had neither bell, knocker, 
‘nor porter. Charles knocked loudly at the shutters with his 
‘hands. A policeman happened to pass by. Then he was fright- 
ened, and went away. 

— “J am mad,” he said; “no doubt they kept her to dinner at 
‘Monsieur Lormeaux’. ” But the Lormeaux no longer lived at 
Rouen. 

“She probably stayed to look after Madame Dubreuil. Why, 

Madame Dubreuil has been dead these ten months! Where 
can she be?” 
An idea occurred to him. At a café he asked for a Direc- 
tory, and hurriedly looked for the name of Mademoiselle 
Lempereur, who lived at No. 74 Rue de la Renelle-des-Maro- 
‘quiniers. 

As he was turning into the street, Emma Rereeti appeared 
at the other end of it. He threw himself upon her rather than 
embraced her, crying— 

“What kept you yesterday?” 





216 MADAME BOVARY 


“T was not well.” 

“What was it? Where? How?” 

She passed her hand over her forehead and answered, “At 
Mademoiselle Lempereur’s.” 

“T was sure of it! I was going there.” 

“Oh, it isn’t worth while,” said Emma. “She went out just 
now; but for the future don’t worry. I do not feel free, you 
see, if I know that the least delay upsets you like this.” 

This was a sort of permission that she gave herself, so as 
to get perfect freedom in her escapades. And she profited 
by it freely, fully. When she was seized with the desire to 
see Léon, she set out upon any pretext; and as he was not ex- 
pecting her on that day, she went to fetch him at his office. 

It was a great delight at first, but soon he no longer con- 
cealed the truth, which was, that his master complained very 
much about these interruptions. 

“Pshaw! come along,” she said. 

And he slipped out. 

She wanted him to dress all in black, and grow a pointed 
beard, to look like the portraits of Louis XIII. She wanted 
to see his lodgings; thought them poor. He blushed at them, 
but she did not notice this, then advised him to buy some cur- 
tains like hers, and as he objected to the expense— 

“Ah! ah! you care for your money,” she said laughing. 

Each time Léon had to tell her everything that he had done 
since their last meeting. She asked him for some verses— 
some verses “for herself,” a “love poem” in honour of her. 
But he never succeeded in getting a rhyme for the second verse; 
and at last ended by copying a sonnet in a “Keepsake.” This 
was less from vanity than from the one desire of pleasing her. 
He did not question her ideas; he accepted all her tastes; he 
was rather becoming her mistress than she his. She had tender 
words and kisses that thrilled his soul. Where could she have 
learnt this corruption almost incorporeal in the strength of its 
profanity and dissimulation? 


VI 


DURING the journeys he made to see her, Léon had often 
dined at the chemist’s, and he felt obliged from politeness 
to invite him in turn. 
“With pleasure!” Monsieur Homais replied; “besides, I must 
invigorate my mind, for I am getting rusty here. We'll go to 
the theatre, to the restaurant; we'll make a night of it!” 


MADAME BOVARY 217 


“Oh, my dear!” tenderly murmured Madame Homais, alarmed 
at the vague perils he was preparing to brave. 

“Well, what? Do you think I’m not sufficiently ruining my 
health living here amid the continual emanations of the phar- 
macy? But there! that is the way with women! They are 
jealous of science, and then are opposed to our taking the most 
legitimate distractions. No matter! Count upon me. One of 
these days I shall turn up at Rouen, and we'll go the pace 
together.” 

The druggist would formerly have taken good care not 
to use such an expression, but he was cultivating a gay Parisian 
‘style, which he thought in the best taste; and, like his neigh- 
‘bour, Madame Bovary, he questioned the clerk curiously about 
the customs of the capital; he even talked slang to dazzle the 
bourgeois, saying bender, crummy, dandy, maccaroni, the cheese, 
cut my stick and “I’ll hook it,’ for “I am going.” 

So one Thursday Emma was surprised to meet Monsieur 
Homais in the kitchen of the “Lion d’Or,” wearing a traveller’s 
costume, that is to say, wrapped in an old cloak which no one 
knew he had, while he carried a valise in one hand and the 
foot-warmer of his establishment in the other. He had confided 
his intentions to no one, for fear of causing the public anxiety 
by his absence. 

The idea of seeing again the place where his youth had 
been spent no doubt excited him, for during the whole journey 
he never ceased talking, and as soon as he had arrived, he 
jumped quickly out of the diligence to go in search of Léon. 
In vain the clerk tried to get rid of him. Monsieur Homais 
dragged him off to the large Café de la Normandie, which he 
entered majestically, not raising his hat, thinking it very pro- 
vincial to uncover in any public place. 

Emma waited for Léon three quarters of an hour. At last 
she ran to his office, and, lost in all sorts of conjectures, ac- 
cusing him of indifference, and reproaching herself for her 
weakness, she spent the afternoon, her face pressed against the 
window-panes. 

At two o’clock they were still at table opposite each other. 
The large room was emptying; the stove-pipe, in the shape of a 
palm-tree, spread its gilt leaves over the white ceiling, and 
near them, outside the window, in the bright sunshine, a little 
fountain gurgled in a white basin, where, in the midst of water- 
cress and asparagus, three torpid lobsters stretched across to 
some quails that lay heaped up in a pile on their sides. 

Homais was enjoying himself. Although he was even more 
intoxicated with the luxury than the rich fare, the Pomare 


218 MADAME BOVARY 


wine all the same rather excited his faculties; and when the 
omelette au rhum appeared, he began propounding immoral] 
theories about women. What seduced him above all else was 
chic. He admired an elegant toilette in a well-furnished apart; 
ment, and as to bodily qualities, he didn’t dislike a young girl. 

Léon watched the clock in despair. The druggist went on 
drinking, eating, and talking. 

“You must be very lonely,” he said suddenly, “here at Rouen. 
To be sure your lady-love doesn’t live far away.” 

And as the other blushed— 

“Come now, be frank. Can you deny that at Yonville——’ 

The young man stammered something. 

“At Madame Bovary’s, you’re not making love to——” 

“To whom?” 

“The servant!” 

He was not joking; but vanity getting the better of all pri 
ence, Léon, in spite of himself protested. Besides, he only liked 
dark women. 

“T approve of that,” said the chemist; “they have more pas- 
sion.” 

And whispering into his friend’s ear, he pointed out the 
symptoms by which one could find out if a woman had passion. 
He even launched into an ethnographic digression: the German 
was vapourish, the French woman licentious, the Italian pas- 
sionate. 

“And negresses ?” asked the clerk. 

“They are an artistic taste!” said Homais. “Waiter! two 
cups of coffee!” 

“Are we going?” at last asked Léon impatiently. 

‘“iok: 

But before leaving he wanted to see the proprietor of the 
establishment and made him a few compliments. Then the 
young man, to be alone, alleged he had some business engage- 
ment. 

“Ah! I will escort you,” said Homais. 

And all the while he was walking through the streets with 
him he talked of his wife, his children, of their future, and of 
his business; told him in what a decayed condition it had for- 
merly been, and to what a degree of perfection he had raised 
ry 

Arrived in front of the Hotel de Boulogne, Léon left him 
abruptly, ran up the stairs, and found his mistress in great 
excitement. At mention of the chemist she flew into a passion. 
He, however, piled up good reasons; it wasn’t his fault; didn’t 
she know Homais—did she believe that he would prefer his 


MADAME BOVARY 219 


company? But she turned away; he drew her back, and, sink- 
ing on his knees, clasped her waist with his arms in a languor- 
ous pose, full of concupiscence and supplication. 

She was standing up, her large flashing eyes looked at him 
seriously, almost terribly. Then tears obscured them, her red 
eyelids were lowered, she gave him her hands, and Léon was 
pressing them to his lips when a servant appeared to tell the 
gentleman that he was wanted. 

“You will come back?” she said. 

SVvereet 

“But when?” 

“Immediately.” 

“Tt’s a trick,” said the chemist, when he saw Léon. “I wanted 
‘to interrupt this visit, that seemed to me to annoy you. Let’s 
) go and have a glass of garus at Bridoux’.” 

Léon vowed that he must get back to his office. Then the 
druggist joked him about quill-drivers and the law. 

| “Leave Cujas and Barthole alone a bit. Who the devil pre- 
vents you? Be a man! Let’s go to Bridoux’. You'll see his 
‘dog. It’s very interesting.” 

And as the clerk still insisted— |. 

“T’ll go with you. Til read a paper while I wait for you, or 
turn over the leaves of a ‘Code.’” 

Léon, bewildered by Emma’s anger, Monsieur Homais’ chat- 
ter, and, perhaps, by the heaviness of the luncheon, was unde- 
cided, and, as it were, fascinated by the chemist, who kept 
repeating— 

“Let’s go to Bridoux’. It’s just by here, in the Rue Malpalu.” 

Then, through cowardice, through stupidity, through that 
indefinable feeling that drags us into the most distasteful acts, 
he allowed himself to be led off to Bridoux’, whom they found 
in his small yard, superintending three workmen, who panted 
as they turned the large wheel of a machine for making seltzer- 
water. Homais gave them some good advice. He embraced 
Bridoux; they took some garus. Twenty times Léon tried to 
escape, but the other seized him by the arm saying— 

“Presently! I’m coming! We'll go to the ‘Fanal de Rouen’ 
to see the fellows there. Il introduce you to Thomassin.” 

At last he managed to get rid of him, and rushed straight 
to the hotel. Emma was no longer there. She had just gone 
in a fit of anger. She detested him now. This failing to keep 
their rendezvous seemed to her an insult, and she tried to rake 
up other reasons to separate herself from him. He was in- 
capable of heroism, weak, banal, more spiritless than a woman, 
avaricious too, and cowardly. 





220 MADAME BOVARY 


Then, growing calmer, she at length discovered that she 
had, no doubt, calumniated him. But the disparaging of those 
we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We 
must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers. 

They gradually came to talking more frequently of matters 
outside their love, and in the letters that Emma wrote him she 
spoke of flowers, verses, the moon and the stars, naive resources 
of a waning passion striving to keep itself alive by all external 
aids. She was constantly promising herself a profound felicity 
on her next journey. Then she confessed to herself that she 
felt nothing extraordinary. This disappointment quickly gave 
way to a new hope, and Emma returned to him more inflamed, 
more eager than ever. She undressed brutally, tearing off the 
thin laces of her corset that nestled around her hips like a 
gliding snake. She went on tiptoe, barefooted, to see once more 
that the door was closed, then, pale, serious, and, without speak- 
ing, with one movement, she threw herself upon his breast with 
a long shudder. 

Yet there was upon that brow covered with cold drops, on 
those quivering lips, in those wild eyes, in the strain of those 
arms, something vague and dreary that seemed to Léon to 
glide between them subtly as if to separate them. 

He did not dare to question her; but, seeing her so skilled, 
she must have passed, he thought, through every experience 
of suffering and of pleasure. What had once charmed now 
frightened him a little. Besides, he rebelled against his ab- 
sorption, daily more marked, by her personality. He begrudged 
Emma this constant victory. He even strove not to love her; 
then, when he heard the creaking of her boots, he turned cow- 
ard, like drunkards at the sight of strong drinks. 

She did not fail, in truth, to lavish all sorts of attentions 
upon him, from the delicacies of food to the coquettries of 
dress and languishing looks. She brought roses in her breast 
from Yonville, which she threw into his face; was anxious about 
his health, gave him advice as to his conduct; and, in order 
the more surely to keep her hold on him, hoping perhaps that 
heaven would take her part, she tied a medal of the Virgin 
round his neck. She inquired like a virtuous mother about his 
companions. She said to him— 

“Don’t see them; don’t go out; think only of ourselves; love 
me!” | 

She would have liked to be able to watch over his life, and 
the idea occurred to her of having him followed in the streets. 
Near the hotel there was always a kind of loafer who accosted 
travellers, and who would not refuse. But her pride revolted 
at this. 





MADAME BOVARY 221 


“Bah! so much the worse. Let him deceive me! What does 
it matter to me? As if I cared for him!” 

One day, when they had parted early and she was returning 
alone along the boulevard, she saw the walls of her convent; 
then she sat down on a form in the shade of the elm-trees. 
How calm that time had been! How she longed for the in-. 
effable sentiments of love that she had tried to figure to herself 
out of books! The first month of her marriage, her rides in 
the wood, the viscount that waltzed, and Lagardy singing, all 
repassed before her eyes. And Léon suddenly appeared to her 
as far off as the others. 

“Yet I love him,” she said to herself. 

No matter! She was not happy—she never had been. Whence 
came this insufficiency in life—this instantaneous turning to 
decay of everything on which she leant? But if there were 
somewhere a being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full 


at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet’s heart in an angel’s 
form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegaic epith- 
-alamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? 
_Ah! how impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble 
of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn 
of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the 


sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire 
for a greater delight. 

A metallic clang droned through the air, and four strokes were 
heard from the convent-clock. Four o’clock! And it seemed 
to her that she had been there on that form an eternity. But 
an infinity of passions may be contained in a minute, like a 
crowd in a small space. 

Emma lived all absorbed in hers, and troubled no more about 
money matters than an archduchess. 

Once, however, a wretched-looking man, rubicund and bald, 
came to her house, saying he had been sent by Monsieur Vincart 
of Rouen. He took out the pins that held together the side- 
pockets of his long green overcoat, stuck them into his sleeve, 
and politely handed her a paper. 

It was a bill for seven hundred francs, signed by her, and 
which Lheureux, in spite of all his professions, had paid away 
to Vincart. She sent her servant for him. He could not come. 
Then the stranger, who had remained standing, casting right 
and left curious glances, that his thick, fair eyebrows hid, asked 
with a naive air— 

“What answer am I to take Monsieur Vincart?” 

“Oh,” said Emma, “tell him that I haven’t it. I will send 
next week; he must wait; yes, till next week.” 


222 MADAME BOVARY 


And the fellow went without another word. 

But the next day at twelve o’clock she received a summons, 
and the sight of the stamped paper, on which appeared several 
times in large letters, “Maitre Hareng, bailiff at Buchy,”’ so 
frightened her that she rushed in hot haste to the linendraper’s. 
She found him in his shop, doing up a parcel. 

“Your obedient!’ he said; “I am at your service.” 

But Lheureux, all the same, went on with his work, helped 
by a young girl of about thirteen, somewhat hunchbacked, who 
was at once his clerk and his servant. 

Then, his clogs clattering on the shop-boards, he went up in 
front of Madame Bovary to the first door, and introduced her 
into a narrow closet, where, in a large bureau in sapon-wood, 
lay some ledgers, protected by a horizontal padlocked iron bar. 
Against the wall, under some remnants of calico, one glimpsed 
a safe, but of such dimensions that it must contain something 
besides bills and money. Monsieur Lheureux, in fact, went in 
for pawnbroking, and ite was there that he had put Madame 
Bovary’s gold chain, together with the earrings of poor old Tel- 
lier, who, at last forced to sell out, had bought a meagre store 
of grocery at Quincampoix, where he was dying of catarrh 
amongst his candles, that were less yellow than his face. 

Lheureux sat down in a large cane arm-chair, saying: “What 
news?” : 

“See 1”? 

And she showed him the paper. 

“Well, how can I help it?” 

Then she grew angry, reminding him of the promise he had 
given not to pay away her bills. He acknowledged it. 

“But I was pressed myself; the knife was at my own throat.” 

“And what will happen now?” she went on. 

“Oh, it’s very simple; a judgment and then a distraint—that’s 
about it!” 

Emma kept down a desire to strike him, and asked gently 
if there was no way of quieting Monsieur Vincart. 

“T dare say! Quiet Vincart! You don’t know him; he’s 
more ferocious than an Arab!” 

Still Monsieur Lheureux must interfere. 

“Well, listen. It seems to me so far I’ve been very good to 
you.” And opening one of his ledgers, “See,” he said. Then 
running up the page with his finger, “Let’s see! let’s see! August 
3d, two hundred francs; June 17th, a hundred and fifty; March 
23d, forty-six. In April uf 

He stopped, as if afraid of making some mistake. ' 

“Not to speak of the bills signed by Monsieur Bovary, one 





MADAME BOVARY 223 


for seven hundred francs, and another for three hundred. As 
to your little instalments, with the interest, why, there’s no 
end to ’em; one gets quite muddled over ’em. I'll have nothing 
more to do with it.” 

She wept; she even called him “her good Monsieur Lheu- 
reux.” But he always fell back upon “that rascal Vincart.”’ 
Besides, he hadn’t a brass farthing; no one was paying him 
now-a-days; they were eating his coat off his back; a poor 
shopkeeper like him couldn’t advance money. 

Emma was silent, and Monsieur Lheureux, who was biting 
the feathers of a quill, no doubt became uneasy at her silence, 
for he went on— 

“Unless one of these days I have something coming in, I 
might is 

“Besides,” said she, “as soon as the balance of Barneville 

“What!” 

And on hearing that Langlois had not yet paid he seemed 
much surprised. Then in a honied voice— 

“And we agree, you say?” 

“Oh! to anything you like.” 

On this he closed his eyes to reflect, wrote down a few 
figures, and declaring it would be very difficult for him, that 
the affair was shady, and that he was being bled, he wrote out 
four bills for two hundred and fifty francs each, to fall due 
month by month. 

“Provided that Vincart will listen to me! However, it’s 
settled. I don’t play the fool; I’m straight enough.” 

Next he carelessly showed her several new goods, not one 
of which, however, was in his opinion worthy of madame. 

“When I think that there’s a dress at threepence-half-penny 
a yard, and warranted fast colours! And yet they actually 
swallow it! Of course you understand one doesn’t tell them 
what it really is!” He hoped by this confession of dishonesty 
to others to quite convince her of his probity to her. 

Then he called her back to show her three yards of guipure 
that he had lately picked up “at a sale.” 

“Isn’t it lovely?” said Lheureux. “It is very much used now 
for the backs of arm-chairs. It’s quite the rage.” 

And, more ready than a juggler, he wrapped up the guipure 
in some blue paper and put it in Emma’s hands. 

“But at least let me know——’” 

“Ves, another time,” he replied, turning on his heel. 

That same evening she urged Bovary to write to his mother, 
to ask her to send as quickly as possible the whole of the balance 
due from the father’s estate. The mother-in-law replied that 





979 





224 MADAME BOVARY 


she had nothing more, the winding up was over, and there was 
due to them besides Barneville an income of six hundred francs, 
that she would pay them punctually. 

Then Madame Bovary sent in accounts to two or three pa- 
tients, and she made large use of this method, which was very 
successful. She was always careful to add a postscript: “Do 
not mention this to my husband; you know how proud he is. 
Excuse me. Yours obediently.” There were some complaints; 
she intercepted them. 

To get money she began selling her old gloves, her old hats, 
the old odds and ends, and she bargained rapaciously, her 
peasant blood standing her in good stead. Then on her journey 
to town she picked up nick-nacks second-hand, that, in default 
of any one else, Monsieur Lheureux would certainly take off 
her hands. She bought ostrich feathers, Chinese porcelain, and 
trunks; she borrowed from Feélicité, from Madame Lefrangois, 
from the landlady at the Croix Rouge, from everybody, no mat- 
ter where. With the money she at last received from Barne- 
ville she paid two bills; the other fifteen hundred francs fell 
due. She renewed the bills, and thus it was continually. 

Sometimes, it is true, she tried to make a calculation, but 
she discovered things so exorbitant that she could not believe 
them possible. Then she recommenced, soon got confused, gave 
it all up, and thought no more about it. 

The house was very dreary now. Tradesmen were seen leav- 
ing it with angry faces. Handkerchiefs were lying about on 
the stoves, and little Berthe, to the great scandal of Mademe 
Homais, wore stockings with holes in them. If Charles timidly 
ventured a remark, she answered roughly that it wasn’t her 
fault. 

What was the meaning of all these fits of temper? He ex- 
plained everything through her old nervous illness, and re- 
proaching himself with having taken her infirmities for faults, 
accused himself of egotism, and longed to go and take her in 
his arms. 

“Ah, no!” he said to himself; “I should worry her.” 

And he did not stir. 

After dinner he walked about alone in the garden; he took 
little Berthe on his knees, and unfolding his medical journal, 
tried to teach her to read. But the child, who never had any 
lessons, soon looked up with large, sad eyes and began to cry. 
Then he comforted her; went to fetch water in her can to 
make rivers on the sand path, or broke off branches from the 
privet hedges to plant trees in the beds. This did not spoil 
the garden much, all choked now with long weeds. They owed 


MADAME BOVARY 225 


Lestiboudois for so many days. Then the child grew cold and 
asked for her mother. 

“Call the servant,’ said Charles. “You know, dearie, that 
mamma does not like to be disturbed.” 

Autumn was setting in, and the leaves were already falling, 
as they did two years ago when she was ill. Where would it 
all end? And he walked up and down, his hands behind his 
back. 

Madame was in her room, which no one entered. She stayed 
there all day long, torpid, half dressed, and from time to time 
burning Turkish pastilles which she had bought at Rouen in 
an Algerian’s shop. In order not to have at night this sleeping 
man stretched at her side, by dint of manceuvring, she at last 
succeeded in banishing him to the second floor, while she read 
till morning extravagant books, full of pictures of orgies and 
thrilling situations. Often, seized with fear, she cried out, and 
Charles hurried to her. 

“Oh, go away!” she would say. 

Or at other times, consumed more ardently than ever by that 
inner flame to which adultery added fuel, panting, tremulous, 
all desire, she threw open her window, breathed in the cold air, 
shook loose in the wind her masses of hair, too heavy, and, 
gazing upon the stars, longed for some princely love. She 
thought of him, of Léon. She would then have given anything 
for a single one of those meetings that surfeited her. 

These were her gala days. She wanted them to be sumptuous, 
and when he alone could not pay the expenses, she made up the 
deficit liberally, which happened pretty well every time. He 
tried to make her understand that they would be quite as com- 
fortable somewhere else, in a smaller hotel, but she always found 
some objection. 

One day she drew six small silver-gilt spoons from her bag 
(they were old Rouault’s wedding present), begging him to 


pawn them at once for her, and Léon “obeyed, though the pro- 


self. 


ceeding annoyed him. He was afraid of compromising him- 


Then, on reflection, he began to think his mistress’s ways 
were growing odd, and that they were perhaps not wrong in 
wishing to separate him from her. 

In fact, some one had sent his mother a long anonymous 
letter to warn her that he was “ruining himself with a married 


| woman,” and the good lady at once conjuring up the eternal 


bugbear of families, the vague pernicious creature, the siren, 
the monster, who dwells fantastically in depths of love, wrote 
to Lawyer Dubocage, his employer, who behaved perfectly in 


226 MADAME BOVARY 


the affair. He kept him for three quarters of an hour trying 
to open his eyes, to warn him of the abyss into which he was 
falling. Such an intrigue would damage him later on, when 
he set up for himself. He implored him to break with her, and, 
if he would not make this sacrifice in his own interest, to do it 
at least for his, Dubocage’s sake. 

At last Léon swore he would not see Emma again, and he 
reproached himself with not having kept his word, consider- — 
ing all the worry and lectures this woman might still draw down 
upon him, without reckoning the jokes made by his companions 
as they sat round the stove in the morning. Besides, he was 
soon to be head-clerk; it was time to settle down. So he gave 
up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois 
in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has 
believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enter- 
prises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; 
every notary bears within him the débris of a poet. 

He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on 
his breast, and his heart, like the people who can only stand 
a certain amount of music, dozed to the sound of a love whose 
delicacies he no longer noted. 

They knew one another too well for any of those surprises 
of possession that increase its joys a hundred-fold. She was 
as sick of him as he was weary of her... Emma found again in 
adultery all the platitudes of marriage - ~~ ee ee 

But how to get rid of him? Then, though she might feel 
humiliated at the baseness of such enjoyment, she clung to it 
from habit or from corruption, and each day she hungered after 
them the more, exhausting all felicity in wishing for too much 
of it. She accused Léon of her baffled hopes, as if he had be- © 
trayed her; and she even longed for some catastrophe that would 
bring about their separation, since she had not the courage to 
make up her mind to it herself. 

She none the less went on writing him love letters, in virtue 
of the notion that a woman must write to her lover. 

But whilst she wrote it was another man she saw, a phantom 
fashioned out of her most ardent memories, of her finest read- 
ing, her strongest lusts, and at last he became so real, so tangible, 
that she palpitated wondering, without, however, the power to — 
imagine him clearly, so lost was he, like a god, beneath the . 
abundance of his attributes. He dwelt in that azure land where 
silk ladders hang from balconies under the breath of flowers, 
in the light of the moon. She felt him near her; he was coming, 
and would carry her right away in a kiss. 

Then she fell back exhausted, for these transports of vague 
jove wearied her more than great debauchery. 





MADAME BOVARY 227 


She now felt constant ache all over her. Often she even 
received summonses, stamped paper that she barely looked at. 
She would have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep. 

On Mid-Lent she did not return to Yonville, but in the even- 
ing went to a masked ball. She wore velvet breeches, red stock- 
ings, a club wig, and three-cornered hat cocked on one side. 
She danced all night to the wild tones of the trombones; people 
gathered round her, and in the morning she found herself on 
the steps of the theatre together with five or six masks, dé-~ 
bardeuses and sailors, Léon’s comrades, who were talking about 
having supper. 

The neighbouring cafés were full. They caught sight of one 
on the harbour, a very indifferent restaurant, whose proprietor 
showed them to a little room on the fourth floor. 

The men were whispering in a corner, no doubt consulting 
about expenses. There were a clerk, two medical students, and 
a shopman—what company for her! As to the women, Emma 
soon perceived from the tone of their voices that they must 
almost belong to the lowest class. Then she was frightened, 
pushed back her chair, and cast down her eyes. 

The others began to eat; she ate nothing. Her head was 
on fire, her eyes smarted, and her skin was ice-cold. In her 
head she seemed to feel the floor of the ball-room rebounding 
again beneath the rhythmical pulsation of the thousands of 
dancing feet. And now the smell of the punch, the smoke of 
the cigars, made her giddy. She fainted, and they carried her 
to the window. 

Day was breaking, and a great stain of purple colour broad- 
ened out in the pale horizon over the St. Catherine hills. The 
livid river was shivering in the wind; there was no one on the 
bridges; the street lamps were going out. 

She revived, and began thinking of Berthe asleep yonder in 
the servant’s room. Then a cart filled with long strips of iron 
passed by, and made a deafening metallic vibration against the 
walls of the houses. 

She slipped away suddenly, threw off her costume, told Léon 
she must get back, and at last was alone at the Hotel de Bou- 
| logne. Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. 
She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly some- 
| where, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young 

again. 

She went out, crossed the Boulevard, the Place Cauchoise, 
and the Faubourg, as far as an open street that overlooked some 
gardens. She walked rapidly, the fresh air calming her; and, 
little by little, the faces of the crowd, the masks. the quadrilles, 


228 MADAME BOVARY 


the lights, the supper, those women, all, disappeared like mists 
fading away. Then, reaching the “Croix-Rouge,” she threw 
herself on the bed in her little room on the second floor, where 
there were pictures of the “Tour de Nesle.” At four o’clock 
Hivert awoke her. 

When she got home, Félicité showed her behind the clock 
a grey paper. She read— 

“In virtue of the seizure in execution of a judgment.” 

What judgment? As a matter of fact, the evening before an- 
other paper had been brought that she had not yet seen, and 
she was stunned by these words— 

“By order of the king, law, and justice, to Madame Bovary.” 
Then, skipping several lines, she read, “Within twenty-four 
hours, without fail But what? “To pay the sum of eight 
thousand francs.” And there was even at the bottom, “She will 
be constrained thereto by every form of law, and notably by a 
writ of distraint on her furniture and effects.” 

What was to be done? In twenty-four hours,—to-morrow. 
Lheureux, she thought, wanted to frighten her again; for she 
saw through all his devices, the object of his kindnesses. What 
reassured her was the very magnitude of the sum. 

However, by dint of buying and not paying, of borrowing, 
signing bills, and renewing these bills, that grew at each new 
falling-in, she had ended by preparing a capital for Monsieur 
Lheureux which he was impatiently awaiting for his specula- 
tions. 

She presented herself at his place with an offhand air. 

“You know what has happened to me? No doubt it’s a joke!” 

INO 

“How so?” 

He turned away slowly, and, folding his arms, said to her— 

“My good lady, did you think I should go on to all eternity 
being your purveyor and banker, for the love of God? Now 
be just. I must get back what I’ve laid out. Now be just.” 

She cried out against the debt. 

“Ah! so much the worse. The court has admitted it. There’s 
a judgment. ‘It’s been notified to you. Besides, it isn’t my 
Frauit.y Lts sVincart s. 

“Could you not——?” 

“Oh, nothing whatever.” 

“But still, now talk it over.” 

And she began beating about the bush; she had known nothing 
about it; it was a surprise. 

“Whase fault is that?” said Lheureux, bowing ironically. 
“While I’m slaving like a nigger, you go gallivanting about.” 





MADAME BOVARY 229 


“Ah! no lecturing.” 

“Tt never does any harm,” he replied. 

She turned coward; she implored him; she even pressed her 
pretty white and slender hand against the shopkeeper’s knee. 

“There, that'll do! Any one’d think you wanted to seduce 
me!” 

“You are a wretch!” she cried. 

“Oh, oh! go it! go it!” 

“{ will show you up. I shall tell my husband.” 

“All right! I too, I'll show your husband something.” 

And Lheureux drew from his strong box the receipt for 
eighteen hundred francs that she had given him when Vingart 
had discounted the bills. 

“Do you think,” he added, “that he’ll not understand your 
little theft, the poor dear man?” 

She collapsed, more overcome than if felled by the blow of 
a pole-axe. He was walking up and down from the window to 
the bureau, repeating all the while— 

“Ah! Tl show him! TIl show him!” Then he approached 
her, and in a soft voice said— 

“Tt isn’t pleasant, I know; but, after all, no bones are broken, 
and, since that is the only way that is left for you paying back 
my money: in 

“But where am I to get any?” said Emma, wringing her 
hands. 

“Bah! when one has friends like you!” 

And he looked at her in so keen, so terrible a fashion, that 
she shuddered to her very heart. 

“T promise you,” she said, “to sign—— 

“T’ve enough of your signatures.” 

“T will sell something.” 

“Get along!” he said, shrugging his shoulders; “you’ve not got 
anything.” 

And he called through the peep-hole that looked down into the 
shop— 

“Annette, don’t forget the three coupons of No. 14.” 

The servant appeared. Emma understood, and asked how 
much money would be wanted to put a stop to the proceedings. 

“Tt is too late.” 

“But if I brought you several thousand francs—a quarter of 





’ 


the sum—a third—perhaps the whole?” 


7? 


“No; it’s no use 
And he pushed her gently towards the staircase. 

“T implore you Monsieur Lheureux, just a few days more!” 
She was sobbing. 


230 MADAME BOVARY / 


“There! tears now!” 
“You are driving me to despair!” 
“What do I care?’ said he, shutting the door. 


Vil 


GHE was stoical the next day when Maitre Hareng, the bailiff, 
with two assistants, presented himself at her house to draw 
up the inventory for the distraint. 

They began with Bovary’s consulting-room, and did not write 
down the phrenological head, which was considered an “instru- 
ment of his profession;’ but in the kitchen they counted the 
plates, the saucepans, the chairs, the candlesticks, and in the 
bedroom all the nick-nacks on the whatnot. They examined 
her dresses, the linen, the dressing-room; and her whole exist- 
ence, to its most intimate details, was, like a corpse on whom 
a post-mortem is made, outspread before the eyes of these three 
men. 

Maitre Hareng, buttoned up in his thin black coat, wearing 
a white choker and very tight foot-straps, repeated from time 
to time—“Allow me, madame. You allow me?” Often he 
uttered exclamations. “Charming! very pretty.” Then he began 
writing again, dipping his pen into the horn inkstand in his left 
hand. 

When they had done with the rooms they went up to the 
attic. She kept a desk there in which Rodolphe’s letters were 
locked. It had to be opened. . 

“Ah! a correspondence,” said Maitre Hareng, with a discreet 
smile. “But allow me, for I must make sure the box contains 
nothing else.” And he tipped up the papers lightly, as if to sliake 
out napoleons. Then she grew angered to see this coarse hand, 
with fingers red and pulpy like slugs, touching these pages 
against which her heart had beaten. a 

They went at last. Félicité came back. Emma had sent her 
out to watch for Bovary in order to keep him off, and they 
hurriedly installed the man in possession under the roof, where 
he swore he would remain. 

During the evening Charles seemed to her careworn. Emma 
watched him with a look of anguish, fancying she saw an accu-" 
gation in every line of his face. Then, when her eyes wandered 
over the chimney-piece ornamented with Chinese screens, over 
the large curtains, the arm-chairs, all those things, in a word, 
that had softened the bitterness of her life, remorse seized her, 
or rather an immense regret, that, far from crushing, irritated 


MADAME BOVARY 231 


her passion. Charles placidly poked the fire, both his feet on 
the fire-dogs. 

Once the man, no doubt bored in his hiding-place, made a 
slight noise. 

“Is any one walking upstairs?” said Charles. 

“No,” she replied; “it is a window that has been left open, 
and is rattling in the wind.” 

The next day, Sunday, she went to Rouen to call on all the 
brokers whose names she knew. They were at their country- 
places or on journeys. She was not discouraged; and those 
whom she did manage to see she asked for money, declaring 
she must have some, and that she would pay it back. Some 
laughed in her face; all refused. 

At two o’clock she hurried to Léon, and knocked at the door. 
No one answered. At length he appeared. 

“What brings you here?” 

“Do I disturb you?” 

“No; but——” And he admitted that his landlord didn’t 


_ like his having “women” there. 


“T must speak to you,” she went on. 

Then he took down the key, but she stopped him. 

“No, no! Down there, in our home!” 

And they went to their room at the Hotel de Boulogne. 

On arriving she drank off a large glass of water. She was 
very pale. She said to him— 

“Léon, you will do me a service?” 

And, shaking him by both hands that she grasped tightly, 


she added— 





“Listen, I want eight thousand francs.” 

“But you are mad!” 

“Not yet.” 

And thereupon, telling him the story of the distraint, she 
explained her distress to him; for Charles knew nothing of it; 
her mother-in-law detested her; old Rouault could do nothing; 
but he, Léon, he would set about finding this indispensable 
sum. 

“How on earth can I?” 

“What a coward you are!” she cried. 

Then he said stupidly, “You are exaggerating the difficulty. 
Perhaps with a thousand crowns or so the fellow could be 
stopped.” 

All the greater reason to try and do something; it was im- 
possible that they could not find three thousand francs. Be- 
sides, Léon could be security instead of her. 

“Go, try, try! I will love you so!” 


232 MADAME BOVARY 


He went out, and came back at the end of an hour, saying, 
with solemn face— 

“T have been to three people with no success.” 

Then they remained sitting face to face at the two chimney 
corners, motionless, 1n silence. Emma shrugged her shoulders 
as she stamped her feet. He heard her murmuring— 

“Tf I were in your place J should soon get some.” 

“But where?” 

“At your office.” And she looked at him. 

An infernal boldness looked out from her burning eyes, and 
their lids drew close together with a lascivious and encouraging 
look, so that the young man felt himself growing weak beneath 
the mute will of this woman who was urging him to a crime. 
Then he was afraid, and to avoid any explanation he smote his 
forehead, crying— 

“Morel is to come back to-night; he will not refuse me, I 
hope” (this was one of his friends, the son of a very rich mer- 
chant) ; “and I will bring it you to-morrow,” he added. 

Emma did not seem to welcome this hope with all the joy he 
had expected. Did she suspect the lie? He went on, blushing— 

“However, if you don’t see me by three o’clock, do not wait 
for me, my darling. I must be off now; forgive me! Good- 
bye!” 

He pressed her hand, but it felt quite lifeless. Emma had 
no strength left for any sentiment. 

Four o’clock struck, and she rose to return to Yonville, 
mechanically obeying the force of old habits. 

The weather was fine. It was one of those March days, 
clear and sharp, when the sun shines in a perfectly white sky. 
The Rouen folk, in Sunday-clothes, were walking about with 
happy looks. She reached the Place du Parvis. People were 
coming out after vespers; the crowd flowed out through the 
three doors like a stream through the three arches of a bridge, 
and in the middle one, more motionless than a rock, stood the 
beadle. 

Then she remembered the day when, all anxious and full of 
hope, she had entered beneath this large nave, that had opened 
out before her, less profound than her love; and she walked 
on weeping beneath her veil, giddy, staggering, almost fainting. 

“Take care!” cried a voice issuing from the gate of a court- 
yard that was thrown open. 

She stopped to let pass a black horse, pawing the ground 
between the shafts of a tilbury, driven by a gentleman in sable 
furs. Who was it? She knew him. The carriage darted by 
and disappeared. 


MADAME BOVARY 233 


Why, it was he—the Viscount. She turned away; the street 
was empty. She was so overwhelmed, so sad, that she had to 
lean against a wall to keep herself from falling. 

Then she thought she had been mistaken. Anyhow, she 
did not know. All within her and around her was abandoning 
her. She felt lost, sinking at random into indefinable abysses, 
and it was almost with joy that, on reaching the ‘Croix Rouge,” 
she saw the good Homais, who was watching a large box full 
of pharmaceutical stores being hoisted on to the “Hirondelle.” 
In his hand he held tied in a silk handkerchief six cheminots 
for his wife. 

Madame Homais was very fond of these small, heavy turban- 
shaped loaves, that are eaten in Lent with salt butter; a last 
vestige of Gothic food that goes back, perhaps, to the time of 
the Crusades, and with which the robust Normans gorged them- 
selves of yore, fancying they saw on the table, in the light of 
the yellow torches, between tankards of hippocras and huge 
boars’ heads, the heads of Saracens to be devoured. The drug- 
gist’s wife crunched them up as they had done—heroically, 
despite her wretched teeth. And so whenever Homais journeyed 
to town, he never failed to bring her home some that he bought 

at the great baker’s in the Rue Massacre. 

“Charmed to see you,” he said, offering Emma a hand to 
help her into the “Hirondelle.” Then he hung up his cheminots 
‘to the cords of the netting, and remained bareheaded in an at- 
titude pensive and Napoleonic. 

' But when the blind man appeared as usual at the foot of the 
hill he exclaimed— 

— *T can’t understand why the authorities tolerate such cul- 
pable industries. Such unfortunates should be locked up and 
forced to work. Progress, my word! creeps at a snail’s pace. 
We are floundering about in mere barbarism.” 

The blind man held out his hat, that flapped about at the 
door, as if it were a bag in the lining that had come unnailed. 

“This,” said the chemist, “is a scrofulous affection.” 

And though he knew the poor devil, he pretended to see him 


for the first time, murmured something about “cornea,” “opaque 


cornea,” “sclerotic,” “facies,” then asked him in a paternal tone— 

“My friend, have you long had this terrible infirmity? In- 
stead of getting drunk at the public, you’d do better to die 
yourself.” 

He advised him to take good wine, good beer, and good joints 
The blind man went on with his song; he seemed, moreover, 
almost idiotic. At last Monsieur Homais opened his purse— 

“Now there’s a sou; give me back two liards, and don’t forget 
my advice: vou’ll he the hetter for it” 





—_ 


234 MADAME BOVARY 


Hivert openly cast some doubt on the efficacy of it. But 
the druggist said that he would cure himself with an antiphlo- 
gistic pommade of his own composition, and he gave his address: 
“Monsieur Homais, near the market, pretty well known.” 

“Now,” said Hivert, “for all this trouble you'll give us your 
performance.” 

The blind man sank down on his haunches, with his head 
thrown back, whilst he rolled his greenish eyes, lolled out 
his tongue, and rubbed his stomach with both hands, as he ut- 
tered a kind of hollow yell like a famished dog. Emma, filled 
with disgust, threw him over her shoulder a five-franc piece. 
It was all her fortune. It seemed to her very fine thus to throw 
it away. 

The coach had gone on again when suddenly Monsieur Ho- 
mais leant out through the window, crying— 

“No farinaceous or milk food, wear wool next the skin, and 
expose the diseased parts to the smoke of juniper berries.” 

The sight of the well-known objects that defiled before her 
eyes gradually diverted Emma from her present trouble. An 
intolerable fatigue overwhelmed her, and she reached her home 
stupefied, discouraged, almost asleep. 

“Come what may come!” she said to herself. “And then, 
who knows? Why, at any moment could not some extraordinary 
event occur? Lheureux even might die!” 

At nine o’clock in the morning she was awakened by the 
sound of voices in the Place. There was a crowd round the mar- 
ket reading a large bill fixed to one of the posts, and she saw 
Justin, who was climbing on to a stone and tearing down the 
bill. But at this moment the rural guard seized him by the 
collar. Monsieur Homais came out of his shop, and Mere Le. 
francois, in the midst of the crowd, seemed to be perorating | 

“Madame! madame!” cried Félicité, running in, “it’s abom: | 
inable!” | 

And the poor girl, deeply moved, handed her a yellow papel | 
that she had just torn off the door. Emma read with a glance 
that all her furniture was for sale. 

Then they looked at one another silently. The servant anc 
mistress had no secret one from the other. At last Félicit 
sighed— 

“Tf I were you, madame, I should go to Monsieur Guillau | 
min.” 

‘Do you think——” 

And this question meant to say— 

“You who know the house through the servant, has th 
master spoken sometimes of me?” 


MADAME BOVARY 235 


“Yes, you’d do well to go there.” 

She dressed, put on her black gown, and her hood with jet 
beads, and that she might not be seen (there was still a crowd 
on the Place), she took the path by the river, outside the vil- 
lage. 

She reached the notary’s gate quite breathless. The sky was 
sombre, and a little snow was falling. At the sound of the bell, 
Theodore in a red waistcoat appeared on the steps; he came 
to open the door almost familiarly, as to an acquaintance, and 
showed her into the dining-room. 

A large porcelain stove crackled beneath a cactus that filled 
up the niche in the wall, and in black wood frames against the 
_oak-stained paper hung Steuben’s “Esmeralda” and Schopin’s 
“Potiphar.” The ready-laid table, the two silver chafing-dishes. 
the crystal door-knobs, the parquet and the furniture, all shone 
with a scrupulous, English cleanliness; the windows were or- 
namented at each corner with stained glass. 

“Now this,” thought Emma, “is the dining-room I ought to 
have.” 

The notary came in pressing his palm-leaf dressing-gown 
to his breast with his left arm, while with the other hand he 
| raised and quickly put on again his brown velvet cap, preten- 
tiously cocked on the right side, whence looked out the ends of 
three fair curls drawn from the back of the head, following 
} the line of his bald skull. 

- After he had offered her a seat he sat down to breakfast, 
apologising profusely for his rudeness. 

/ “T have come,” she said, “to beg you, sir 
= =“What, madame? I am listening.” 

- And she began explaining her position to him. Monsieur 
;Guillaumin knew it, being secretly associated with the linen- 
»draper, from whom he always got capital for the loans on 
‘mortgages that he was asked to make. 

# So he knew (and better than she herself) the long story 
“of the bills, small at first, bearing different names as endorsers, 
‘made out at long dates, and constantly renewed up to the day, 
when, gathering together all the protested bills, the shopkeeper 
(had bidden his friend Vincart take in his own name all the 
‘mecessary proceedings, not wishing to pass for a tiger with his 
/fellow-citizens. 

| She mingled her story with recriminations against Lheureux, 
to which the notary replied from time to time with some in- 
significant word. Eating his cutlet and drinking his tea, he 
duried his chin in his sky-blue cravat, into which were thrust 
two diamond pins, held together by a small gold chain; and 





” 











236 MADAME BOVARY 


he smiled a singular smile, in a sugary, ambiguous fashion. 
But noticing that her feet were damp, he said— 

“Do get closer to the stove; put your feet up against the 
porcelain.” 

She was afraid of dirtying it. The notary replied in a gallant 
tone— 

“Beautiful things spoil nothing.” 

Then she tried to move him, and, growing moved herself, 
she began telling him about the poorness of her home, her 
worries, her wants. He could understand that; an elegant 
woman! and, without leaving off eating, he had turned com- 
pletely round towards her, so that his knee brushed against her 
boot, whose sole curled round as it smoked against the stove. 

But when she asked for a thotisand écus, he closed his lips, 
and declared he was very sorry he had not had the management 
of her fortune before, for there were hundreds of ways very 
convenient, even for a lady, of turning her money to account. 
They might, either in the turf-peats of Grumesnil or building- 
ground at Havre, almost without risk, have ventured on some 
excellent speculations; and he let her consume herself with rage 
at the thought of the fabulous sums that she would certainly 
have made. 

“How was it,” he went on, “that you didn’t come to me?” 

“T hardly know,” she said. 

“Why, hey? Did I frighten you so much? It is I, on the 
contrary, who ought to complain. We hardly know one an- 
other; yet I am very devoted to you. You do not doubt that, 
I hope?” 

He held out his hand, took hers, covered it with a greedy 
kiss, then held it on his knee; and he played delicately with 
her fingers whilst he murmured a thousand blandishments. His 
insipid voice murmured like a running brook; a light shone in 
his eyes through the glimmering of his spectacles, and his hand 
was advancing up Emma’s sleeve to press her arm. She felt. 
against her cheek his panting breath. This man oppressed her 
horribly. 

She sprang up and said to him— 

“Sir, I am waiting.” 

“For what?” said the notary, who suddenly became very 
pale. 

“This money.” 

“But——” Then, yielding to the outburst of too powerful 
a desire, “Well, yes!” 

He dragged himself towards her on his knees, regardless of 
his dressing-gown. 


MADAME BOVARY 237 


“For pity’s sake, stay! I love you!” 

He seized her by her waist. Madame Bovary’s face flushed 
purple. She recoiled with a terrible look, crying— 

“You are taking a shameless advantage of my distress, sir! 
I am to be pitied—not to be sold.” 

And she went out. 

The notary remained quite stupefied, his eyes fixed on his 
fine embroidered slippers. They were a love gift, and the sight 
of them at last consoled him. Besides, he reflected that such 
an adventure might have carried him too far. 

“What a wretch! what a scoundrel! what an infamy!” she 
said to herself, as she fled with nervous steps beneath the aspens 
of the path. The disappointment of her failure increased the 
indignation of her outraged modesty; it seemed to her that 
Providence pursued her implacably, and, strengthening herself 
in her pride, she had never felt so much esteem for herself 
nor so much contempt for others. A spirit of warfare trans- 
formed her. She would have liked to strike all men, to spit in 
their faces, to crush them, and she walked rapidly straight on, 
pale, quivering, maddened, searching the empty horizon with 
tear-dimmed eyes, and as it were rejoicing in the hate that was 
choking her. 

When she saw her house a numbness came over her. She 
could not go on; and yet she must. Besides, whither could she 
flee ? 

Félicité was waiting for her at the door. “Well?” 

“No!” said Emma. 

And for a quarter of an hour the two of them went over the 
various persons in Yonville who might perhaps be inclined to 
help her. But each time that Félicité named some one Emma 
replied— 

“Impossible! they will not 

“And the master’!l soon be in.” 

“T know that well enough. Leave me alone.” 

She had tried everything; there was nothing more to be 
jone now; and when Charles came in she would have to say 
(0 him— 

“Go away! This carpet on which you are walking is no 
onger ours. In your own house you do not possess a chair, a 
yin, a straw, and it is I, poor man, who have ruined you.” 

Then there would be a great sob; next he would weep abund- 
intly, and at last, the surprise past, he would forgive her. 

“Yes,” she murmured, grinding her teeth, “he will forgive 
ne, he who would give me a million if I would forgive him 
‘or having known me! Never! never!” 


” 
! 


238 MADAME BOVARY 


This thought of Bovary’s superiority to her exasperated her. 
Then, whether she confessed or did not confess, presently, 
immediately, to-morrow, he would know the catastrophe all the 
same; so she must wait for this horrible scene, and bear the 
weight of his magnanimity. The desire to return to Lheureux’s 
seized her—what would be the use? To write to her father— 
it was too late; and perhaps she began to repent now that she 
had not yielded to that other, when she heard the trot of a horse 
in the alley. It was he; he was opening the gate; he was whiter 
than the plaster wall. Rushing to the stairs, she ran out quickly 
to the square; and the wife of the mayor, who was talking to 
Lestiboudois in front of the church, saw her go in to the tax- 
collector’s. 

She hurried off to tell Madame Caron, and the two ladies 
went up to the attic, and, hidden by some linen spread across 
props, stationed themselves comfortably for overlooking the 
whole of Binet’s room. 

He was alone in his garret, busy imitating in wood one of 
those indescribable bits of ivory, composed of crescents, of 
spheres hollowed out one within the other, the whole as straight 
as an obelisk. and of no use whatever; and he was beginning 
on the last piece—he was nearing his goal. In the twilight of 
the workshop the white dust was flying from his tools like a 
shower of sparks under the hoofs of a galloping horse; the 
two wheels were turning, droning; Binet smiled, his chin low- 
ered, his nostrils distended, and, in a word, seemed lost in one 
of those complete happinesses that, no doubt, belong only to 
commonplace occupations, which amuse the mind with facile 
difficulties, and satisfy by a realisation of that beyond which 
such minds have not a dream. 

“Ah! there she is!” exclaimed Madame Tuvache. 

But it was impossible because of the lathe to hear what she 
was saying. 

At last these ladies thought they made out the word “francs,” 
and Madame Tuvache whispered in a low voice— 

“She is begging him to give her time for paying her taxes.” 

“Apparently!” replied the other. 

They saw her walking up and down, examining the napkin- 
rings, the candlesticks, the banister rails against the walls, while 
Binet stroked his beard with satisfaction. 

“Do you think she wants to order something of him?” sai¢c 
Madame Tuvache. 

“Why, he doesn’t sell anything,” objected her neighbour. | 

The tax-collector seemed to be listening with wide-open eyes 
as if he did not understand. She went on in a tender, supplian 


MADAME BOVARY 239 


manner. She came nearer to him, her breast heaving; they no 
longer spoke. 

“Ts she making him advances?” said Madame Tuvache. 

Binet was scarlet to his very ears. She took hold of his 
hands. 

“Oh, it’s too much!” 

And no doubt she was suggesting something abominable to 
him; for the tax-collector—yet he was brave, had fought at 
Bautzen and at Lutzen, had been through the French campaign, 
and had even been recommended for the cross—suddenly, as at 
the sight of a serpent, recoiled as far as he could from her, 
crying— 

“Madame! what do you mean?” 

“Women like that ought to be whipped,” said Madame Tu- 
vache. 

“But where is she?” continued Madame Caron, for she had 
disappeared whilst they spoke; then catching sight of her going 
up the Grande Rue, and turning to the right as if making for 
the cemetery, they were lost in conjectures. 


“Nurse Rolet,” she said on reaching the nurse’s, “I am chok- 
ing; unlace me!” She fell on the bed sobbing. Nurse Rolet 
covered her with a petticoat and remained standing by her side. 
Then, as she did not answer, the good woman withdrew, took 
her wheel and began spinning flax. 

“Oh, leave off!” she murmured, fancying she heard Binet’s 
lathe. 

“What’s bothering her?” said the nurse to herself. “Why 
has she come here?” 

She had rushed thither, impelled by a kind of horror that 
drove her from her home. 

Lying on her back, motionless, and with staring eyes, she 
saw things but vaguely, although she tried to with idiotic per- 
-sistence. She looked at the scales on the walls, two brands 
smoking end to end, and a long spider crawling over her head 
in a rent in the beam. At last she began to collect her thoughts. 
She remembered—one day—Léon Oh! how long ago that 
-was-——the sun was shining on the river, and the clematis were 
perfuming the air. Then, carried away as by a rushing torrent, 
-she soon began to recall the day before. 

“What time is it?” she asked. 

Mére Rolet went out, raised the fingers of her right hand to 
that side of the sky that was brightest, and came back slowly, 
saying— 

“Nearly three.” 





240 MADAME BOVARY 


“Ah! thanks, thanks!” 

For he would come; he would have found some money. 
But he would, perhaps, go down yonder, not guessing she was 
here, and she to!d the nurse to run to her house to fetch him. 

“Be quick!” 

“But, my dear lady, I’m going, I’m going 

She wondered now that she had not thought of him from 
the first. Yesterday he had given his word; he would not 
break it. And she already saw herself at Lheureux’s spreading 
out her three bank-notes on his bureau. Then she would have 
to invent some story to explain matters to Bovary. What should 
it be? 

The nurse, however, was a long while gone. But, as there 
was no clock in the cot, Emma feared she was perhaps exag- 
gerating the length of time. She began walking round the 
garden, step by step; she went into the path by the hedge, and 
returned quickly, hoping that the woman would have come back 
by another road. At last, weary of waiting, assailed by fears 
that she thrust from her, no longer conscious whether she had 
been here a century or a moment, she sat down in a corner, 
closed her eyes, and stopped her ears. The gate grated; she 
sprang up. Before she had spoken Mére Rolet said to her— 

“There is no one at your house!” 

“What?” 

“Oh, no one! And the doctor is crying. He is calling for 
you; they’re looking for you.” 

Emma answered nothing. She gasped as she turned her eyes 
about her, while the peasant woman, frightened at her face, 
drew back instinctively, thinking her mad. Suddenly she struck 
her brow and uttered a cry; for the thought of Rodolphe, like 
a flash of lightning in a dark night, had passed into her soul. 
He was so good, so delicate, so generous! And besides, should 
he hesitate to do her this service, she would know well enough 
how to constrain him to it by re-waking, in a single moment, 
their lost love. So she set out towards La Huchette, not seeing 
that she was hastening to offer herself to that which but a 
while ago had so angered her, not in the least conscious of her 
prostitution. 


” 
! 


MADAME BOVARY 24! 


Vill 


GHE asked herself as she walked along, “What am I going 

to say? How shall I begin?” And as she went on she 
recognised the thickets, the trees, the sea-rushes on the hill, the 
chateau yonder. All the sensations of her first tenderness came 
back to her, and her poor aching heart opened out amorously, 
A warm wind blew in her face; the melting snow fell drop by 
drop from the buds to the grass. 

She entered, as she used to, through the small park-gate. 
Then came to the avenue bordered by a double row of dense 
lime-trees. They were swaying their long whispering branches 
to and fro. The dogs in their kennels all barked, and the 
noise of their voices resounded, but brought out no one. 

She went up the large straight staircase with wooden balus- 
ters that led to the corridor paved with dusty flags, into which 
several doors in a row opened, as in a monastery or an inn. 
His was at the top, right at the end, on the left. When she 
placed her fingers on the lock her strength suddenly deserted 
her. She was afraid, almost wished he would not be there, 
though this was her only hope, her last chance of salvation. 
She collected her thoughts for one moment, and, strengthening 
herself by the feeling of present necessity, went in. 

He was in front of the fire, both his feet on the mantel- 
Piece, smoking a pipe. 

“What! it is you!” he said, getting up hurriedly. 

“Yes, it is I, Rodolphe. I should like to ask your advice.” 
And, despite all her efforts, it was impossible for her to open 
her lips. 

“You have not changed; you are charming as ever!” 

“Oh,” she replied bitterly, “they are poor charms since you 
disdained them.” 

Then he began a long explanation of his conduct, excusing 
himself in vague terms, in default of being able to invent better. 
) She yielded to his words, still more to his voice and the 

sight of him, so that she pretended to believe, or perhaps be- 
lieved, in the pretext he gave for their rupture; this was a 
secret on which depended the honour, the very life of a third 
person. 

_ “No matter!” she said, looking at him sadly. “I have suffered 
/ much.” 

' He replied philosophically— 

“Such is life!” 





242 MADAME BOVARY 


“Has life,” Emma went on, “been good to you at least, since 
our separation?” 

“Oh, neither good nor bad.” 

“Perhaps it would have been better never to have parted.” 

“Yes, perhaps.” 

“You think so?” she said, drawing nearer, and she sighed, 
“Oh, Rodolphe! if you but knew! I loved you so!” 

It was then that she took his hand, and they remained some 
time, their fingers intertwined, like that first day at the Show. 
With a gesture of pride he struggled against this emotion. 
But sinking upon his breast she said to him— 

“How did you think I could live without you? One cannot 
lose the habit of happiness. I was desolate. I thought I should 
die. I will tell you about all that and you will see. And you— 

ou fled from me!” 

/ For, all the three years, he had carefully avoided her in con- 
‘sequence of that natural cowardice that characterises the 
' stronger sex. Emma went on with dainty little nods, more 
(coaxing than an amorous kitten— 

“You love others, confess it! Oh, I understand them, dear! 
I excuse them. You probably seduced them as you seduced 
me. You are indeed a man; you have everything to make one 
love you. But we'll begin again, won’t we? We will love one 
another. See! I am laughing; I am happy! Oh, speak!” 

And she was charming to see, with her eyes, in which trembled 
a tear, like the rain of a storm in a blue corolla. 

He had drawn her upon his knees, and with the back of his 
hand was caressing her smooth hair, where in the twilight was 
mirrored like a golden arrow one last ray of the sun. She 
bent down her brow; at last he kissed her on the eyelids quite 
gently with the tips of his lips. 

“Why, you have been crying! What for?” | 

She burst into tears. Rodolphe thought this was an outburst 
of her love. As she did not speak, he took this silence for a 
last remnant of resistance, and then he cried out— 

“Oh, forgive me! You are the only one who pleases me. | | 
was imbecile and cruel. I love you. I will love you always. 
What is it? Tell me!” He was kneeling by her. 

“Well, I am ruined, Rodolphe! You must lend me three 
thousand francs.” 

“But—but ” said he, getting up slowly, while his face as- 
sumed a grave expression. - 

“You know,” she went on quickly, “that my husband had 
placed his whole fortune at a notary’s. He ran away. So we 
borrowed; the patients don’t pay us. Moreover, the settling of 





MADAME BOVARY 243 


the estate is not. yet done; we shall have the money later on. 
But to-day, for want of three thousand francs, we are to be 
sold up. It is to be at once, this very moment, and, counting 
upon your friendship, I have come to you.” 

“Ah!” thought Rodolphe, turning very pale, “that was what 
she came for.” At last he said with a calm air— 

“Dear madame, I have not got them.” 

He did not lie. If he had had them, he would, no doubt, 
have given them, although it is generally disagreeable to do such 
fine things: a demand for money being, of all the winds that 
blow upon love, the coldest and most destructive. . 

First she looked at him for some moments. 

“You have not got them!” she repeated several times. “You 
have not got them! I ought to have spared myself this last 
shame. You never loved me. You are no better than the 
others.” 

She was betraying, ruining herself. 

Rodolphe interrupted her, declaring he was “hard up” him- 
self. 

“Ah! I pity you,” said Emma. “Yes—very much.” 

And fixing her eyes upon an embossed. carabine that shone 
against its panoply, “But when one ig so poor one doesn’t have 
silver on the butt of one’s gun. One doesn’t buy a clock inlaid 
with tortoiseshell,” she went on, pointing to a buhl timepiece, 
“nor silver-gilt whistles for one’s whips,” and she touched 
them, “nor charms for one’s watch. Oh, he wants for nothing! 
even to a liqueur-stand in his room! For you love yourself; 
you live well. You have a chateau, farms, woods: you go hunt- 
ing; you travel to Paris. Why, if it were but that,” she cried, 
taking up two studs from the mantlepiece, “but the least of these 
wifles, one can get money for them. Oh, I do not want them ; 
<eep them!” 

And she threw the two links away from her, ther gold chain 
wreaking as it struck against the wall. 

“But I! I would have given you everything. I would have 
old all, worked for you with my hands, I would have begged 
m the highroads for a smile, for a look, to hear you say 
Thanks!’ And you sit there quietly in your arm-chair, as if 
‘ou had not made me suffer enough already! But for you, and 
‘ou know it, I might have lived happily. What made you do 
t? Was it a bet? Yet you loved me—you said so. And but 

moment since—— Ah! ‘it would have been better to have 

Tiven me away. My hands are hot with your kisses, and there 
3 the spot on the carpet where at my knees you swore an 
ternity of love! You made me believe you; for two years you 


244” MADAME BOVARY 


held tne in the most magnificent, the sweetest dream! Eh! 
Our plans for the journey, do you remember? Oh, your letter ! 
your letter! it tore my heart! And then when I come back to 
him—to him, rich, happy, free—to implore the help the first 
stranger would give, a suppliant, and bringing back to him all 
my tenderness, he repulses me because it would cost him three 
thousand francs!” 

“T haven’t got them,” replied Rodolphe, with that perfect 
calm with which resigned rage covers itself as with a shield. 

She went out. The walls trembled, the ceiling was crushing 
her, and she passed back through the long alley, stumbling 
against the heaps of dead leaves scattered by the wind. At last 
she reached the ha-ha hedge in front of the gate; she broke 
her nails against the lock in her haste to open it. Then a hun- 
dred steps farther on, breathless, almost falling, she stopped. 
And now turning round, she once more saw the impassive 
chateau, with the park, the gardens, the three courts, and all 
the windows of the fagade. 

She remained lost in stupor, and having no more conscious- 
ness of herself than through the beating of her arteries, that she 
seemed to hear bursting forth like a deafening music filling all 
the fields. The earth beneath her feet was more yielding than 
the sea, and the furrows seemed to her immense brown waves 
breaking into foam. Everything in her head, of memories, ideas, 
went off at once like a thousand pieces of fireworks. She saw 
her father, Lheureux’s closet, their room at home, another land- 
scape. Madness was coming upon her; she grew afraid, and 
managed to recover herself, in a confused way, it is true, for 
she did not in the least remember the cause of the terrible con- 
dition she was in, that is to say, the question of money. She 
suffered only in her love, and felt her soul passing from her 
in this memory, as wounded men, dying, feel their life ebb 
from their bleeding wounds. 

Night was falling, crows were flying about. 

Suddenly it seemed to her that fiery spheres were exploding 
in the air like fulminating balls when they strike, and were 
whirling, whirling, to melt at last upon the snow between the 
branches of the trees. In the midst of each of them appeared 
the face of Rodolphe. They multiplied and drew near her, 
penetrating her. It all disappeared; she recognised the lights 
of the houses that shone through the fog. ) 

Now her situation, like an abyss, rose up before her. She 
was panting as if her heart would buret. Then in an ecstasy 
of heroism, that made her almost joyous, she ran down the hill, 
crossed the cow-plank, the footpath, the alley, the market, and 


MADAME BOVARY © 245 


reached the chemist’s shop. She was about to enter, but at the 
sound of the bell some one might come, and slipping in by the 
gate, holding her breath, feeling her way along the walls, she 
went as far as the door of the kitchen, where a candle stuck 
on the stove was burning. Justin in his shirt-sleeves was car- 
rying out a dish. 

“Ah! they are dining; I will wait.” 

He returned; she tapped at the window. He went out. 

“The key! the one for upstairs where he keeps the——” 

“What?” 

And he looked at her, astonished at the pallor of her face, 
that stood out white against the black background of the night. 
She seemed to him extraordinarily beautiful and majestic as a 
phantom. Without understanding what she wanted, he had 
the presentiment of something terrible. 

But she went on quickly in a low voice, in a sweet, melting 
voice, “I want it; give it to me.” 

As the partition wall was thin, they could hear the clatter of 
the forks on the plates in the dining-room. 

She pretended that she wanted to kill the rats that kept her 
from sleeping. 

“T must tell master.” 

“No, stay!” Then with an indifferent air, “Oh, it’s not worth 
while; I’ll tell him presently. Come, light me upstairs.” 

She entered the corridor into which the laboratory door 
opened. Against the wall was a key labelled Capharnaiim. 

“Justin!” called the druggist impatiently. 

“Let us go up.” 

And he followed her. The key turned in the lock, and she 
went straight to the third shelf, so well did her memory guide 
her, seized the blue jar, tore out the cork, plunged in her hand, i 
and withdrawing it full of a white powder, she began eating it. | 

“Stop!” he cried, rushing at her. 

“Hush! some one will come.” 

He was in despair, was calling out. 

“Say nothing, or all the blame will fall on your master.” 

Then she went home, suddenly calmed, and with something 
o£ the serenity of one that had performed a duty. 


| When Charles, distracted by the news of the distraint, re- 
urned home, Emma had just gone out. He cried aloud, wept, 
‘ainted, but she did not return. Where could she be? He sent 
*élicité to Homais, to Monsieur Tuvache, to Lheureux, to the 
‘Lion d’Or,” everywhere, and in the intervals of his aguny he 
aw his reputation destroyed, their fortune lost, Berthe’s future 


246 MADAME BOVARY 


ruined. By what?—Not a word! He waited till six in the 
evening. At last, unable to bear it any longer, and fancying she 
had gone to Rouen, he set out along the highroad, walked a 
mile, met no one, again waited, and returned home. She had 
come back. 

“What was the matter? Why? Explain to me.” 

She sat down at her writing-table and wrote a letter, which 
she sealed slowly, adding the date and the hour. Then she 
said in a solemn tone— 

“You are to read it to-morrow; till then, I pray you, do not 
ask me a single question. No, not one!” 

Shytoo 

“Oh, leave me!” 

She lay down full length on her bed. A bitter taste that she 
felt in her mouth awakened her. She saw Charles, and again 
closed her eyes. 

She was studying herself curiously, to see if she were not 
suffering. But no! nothing as yet. She heard the ticking of 
the clock, the crackling of the fire, and Charles breathing as he 
stood upright by her bed. 

“Ah! it is but a little thing, death!” she thought. “I shall 


‘fall asleep and all will be over.” 


She drank a mouthful of water and turned to the wall. The 
frightful taste of ink continued. 

“T am thirsty; oh! so thirsty,” she sighed. 

“What is it?” said Charles, who was handing her a glass. 

“Tt is nothing! Open the window; I am choking.” 

She was seized with a sickness so sudden that she had hardly 
time to draw out her handkerchief from under the pillow. 

“Take it away,” she said quickly; “throw it away.” 

He spoke to her; she did not answer. She lay motionless, 
afraid that the slightest movement might make her vomit. But 
she felt an icy cold creeping from her feet to her heart. | 

“Ah! it is beginning,” she murmured. | 

“What did you say?” | 

She turned her head from side to side with a gentle move> 
ment full of agony, while constantly opening her mouth as if) 
something very heavy were weighing upon her tongue. At 
eight o’clock the vomiting began again. 

Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there was 
a sort of white sediment sticking to the sides of the porce- 
lain. 

“This is extraordinary—very singular,” he repeated. 

But she said in a firm voice, “No, you are mistaken.” 

Then gently, and almost as caressing her, he passed his hand 


| 


MADAME BOVARY 247 


over her stomach. She uttered a sharp cry. He fell back 
terror-stricken. 

Then she began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoulders were 
shaken by a strong shuddering, and she was growing paler than 
the sheets in which her clenched fingers buried themselves. Her 
unequal pulse was now almost imperceptible. 

Drops of sweat oozed from her bluish face, that seemed as 
if rigid in the exhalations of a metallic vapour. Her teeth 
chattered, her dilated eyes looked vaguely about her, and to all 
questions she replied only with a shake of the head; she even 
smiled once or twice. Gradually, her moaning grew louder; a 
hollow shriek burst from her; she pretended she was better and 
that she would get up presently. But she was seized with con- 
vulsions and cried out— 

“Ah! my God! It is horrible!” 

He threw himself on his knees by her bed. 

“Tell me! what have you eaten? Answer, for heaven’s sake!” 

And he looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes such as 
she had never seen. 

“Well, there—there!” she said in a faint voice. He flew to 
the writing-table, tore open the seal, and read aloud: “Accuse 
no one.” He stopped, passed his hands across his eyes, and 
read it over again. 

“What! help—help!” 

He could only keep repeating the word: “Poisoned! poisoned !” 
Félicité ran to Homais, who proclaimed it in the market-place; 
Madame Lefrancois heard it at the “Lion d’Or;” some got up 
to go and tell their neighbours, and all night the village was on 
the alert. 

Distraught, faltering, reeling, Charles wandered about the 
room. He knocked against the furniture, tore his hair, and 
the chemist had never believed that there could be so terrible 
a sight. 

He went home to write to Monsieur Canivet and to Doctor 
Lariviére. He lost his head, and made more than fifteen rougk 
copies. Hippolyte went to Neufchatel, and Justin so spurreé 
Bovary’s horse that he left it foundered and three parts dead by 
the hill at Bois-Guillaume. 

Charles tried to look up his medical dictionary, but could not 
read it; the lines were dancing. 

“Be calm,” said the druggist; “we have only to administer a 
powerful antidote. What is the poison?” 

Charles showed him the letter. It was arsenic. 

“Very well,” said Homais, “we must make an analysis.” 

For he knew that in cases of poisoning an analysis must be 


248 MADAME BOVARY 


made; and the other, who did not understand, answered— 

“Oh, do anything! save her!” 

Then going back to her, he sank upon the carpet, and lay there 
with his head leaning against the edge of her bed, sobbing. 

“Don’t cry,” she said to him. “Soon I shall not trouble you 
any more.” 

“Why was it? Who drove you to it?” 

She replied. “It had to be, my dear!” 

“Weren’t you happy? Is it my fault? I did all I could!” 

“Yes, that is true—you are good—you.” 

And she passed her hand slowly over his hair. The sweet: 
ness of this sensation deepened his sadness; he felt his whole 
being dissolving in despair at the thought that he must lose 
her, just when she was confessing more love for him than ever. 
And he could think of nothing; he did not know, he did not 
dare; the urgent need for some immediate resolution gave the 
finishing stroke to the turmoil of his mind. 

So she had done, she thought, with all the treachery, and 
meanness, and numberless desires that had tortured her. She 
hated no one now; a twilight dimness was settling upon her 
thoughts, and, of all earthly noises, Emma heard none but the 
intermittent lamentations of this poor heart, sweet and indis- 
tinct like the echo of a symphony dying away. 

“Bring me the child,” she said, raising herself on her elbow. 

“You are not worse, are you?” asked Charles. 

wo, 101” 

The child, serious, and still half-asleep, was carried in on the 
servant’s arm in her long white nightgown, from which her 
bare feet peeped out. She looked wonderingly at the disordered 
room, and half-closed her eyes, dazzled by the candles burning 
on the table. They reminded her, no doubt, of the morning 
of New Year’s day and Mid-Lent, when thus awakened early 
by candlelight she came to her mother’s bed to fetch her pres- 
ents, for she began saying— 

“But where is it, mamma?” And as everybody was silent, 
“But I can’t see my little stocking.” 

Félicité held her over the bed while she still kept looking to- 
wards the mantelpiece. 

“Has nurse taken it?” she asked. 

And at this name, that carried her back to the memory of 
her adulteries and her calamities, Madame Bovary turned away 
her head, as at the loathing of another bitterer poison that 
rose to her mouth. But Berthe remained perched on the bed. 

“Oh, how big your eyes are, mamma! How pale you are! 
how hot you are!” rd 


MADAME BOVARY 249 


Her mother looked at her. 

“I am frightened!” cried the child, recoiling. 

Emma took her hand to kiss it; the child struggled. 

“That will do. Take her away,” cried Charles, who was 
sobbing in the alcove. 

Then the symptoms ceased for a moment; she seemed less 
agitated; and at every insignificant word, at every respiration 
2 little more easy, he regained hope. At last, when Canivet 
same in, he threw himself into his arms. 

“Ah! it is you. Thanks! You are good! But she is better. 
See! look at her.” 

His colleague was by no means of this opinion, and, as he 
aid of himself, “never beating about the bush,” he prescribed 
in emetic in order to empty the stomach completely. 

She soon began vomiting blood. Her lips became drawn. 
ter limbs were convulsed, her whole body covered with brown 
pots, and her pulse slipped beneath the fingers like a stretched 
hread, like a harp-string nearly breaking. 

After this*she began to scream horribly. She cursed the 
oison, railed at it, and implored it to be quick, and thrust 
way with her stiffened arms everything that Charles, in more 
gony than herself, tried to make her drink. He stood up, his 
tandkerchief to his lips, with a rattling sound in his throat, 
veeping, and choked by sobs that shook his whole body. Fé- 
icité was running hither and thither in the room. Homais, 
aotionless, uttered great sighs; and Monsieur Canivet, always 
etaining his self-command, nevertheless began to feel uneasy. 
“The devil! yet she has been purged, and from the moment 
hat the cause ceases——” 

“The effect must cease,” said Homais, “that is evident.” 
'“QOh, save her!” cried Bovary. 

And, without listening to the chemist, who was still venturing 
he hypothesis, “It is perhaps a salutary paroxysm,” Canivet 
ras about to administer some theriac, when they heard the 
racking of a whip; all the windows rattled, and a post-chaise 
rawn by three horses abreast, up to their ears in mud, drove 
t a gallop round the corner of the market. It was Doctor 
iariviere. 

The apparition of a god would not have caused more com- 
lotion. Bovary raised his hands; Canivet stopped short; and 
lomais pulled off his skull-cap long before the doctor had 
ome in. 

He belonged to that great school of surgery begotten of 
‘ichat, to that generation, now extinct, of philosophical prac- 
tioners, who, loving their art with a fanatical love, exercised 


250 MADAME BOVARY 


it with enthusiasm and wisdom. Every one in his hospital 
trembled when he was angry; and his students so revered him 
that they tried, as soon as they were themselves in practice, to 
imitate him as much as possible. So that in all the towns about 
they were found wearing his long wadded merino overcoat and 
black frock-coat, whose buttoned cuffs slightly covered his 
brawny hands—very beautiful hands, and that never knew gloves, 
as though to be more ready to plunge into suffering. Disdainful 
of honours, of titles, and of academies, like one of the old 
Knight-Hospitallers, generous, fatherly to the poor, and prac- 
tising virtue without believing in it, he would almost have passed 
for a saint if the keenness of his intellect had not caused him 
to be feared as a demon. His glance, more penetrating than his 
bistouries, looked straight into your soul, and dissected every 
lie athwart all assertions and all reticences. And thus he went 
along, full of that debonair majesty that is given by the con- 
sciousness of great talent, of fortune, and of forty years of a 
labourious and irreproachable life. 

He frowned as soon as he had passed the door when he saw 
the cadaverous face of Emma stretched out on her back with 
her mouth open. Then, while apparently listening to Canivet, 
he rubbed his fingers up and down beneath his nostrils, and re- 
peated— | 

“Good! good!” | 

But he made a slow gesture with his shoulders. Bovary 
watched him; they looked at one another; and this man, ac-| 
customed as he was to the sight of pain, could not keep back a) 
tear that fell on his shirt-frill. 

He tried to take Canivet into the next room. Charles fol-| 
lowed him. 

“She is very ill, isn’t she? If we put on sinapisms? Any-| 
thing! Oh, think of something, you who have saved so many 1” | 

Charles caught him in both his arms, and gazed at him wildly, 
imploringly, half-fainting against his breast. 

“Come, my poor fellow, courage! There is nothing more to| 
be done.” | 

And Doctor Lariviére turned away. 

“You are going?” 

“T will come back.” | 

He went out only to give an order to the coachman, with} 
Monsieur Canivet, who did not care either to have Emma die) 
under his hands. | 

The chemist rejoined them on the Place. He could not by 
temperament keep away from celebrities, so he begged Monsieut), 





i 





MADAME BOVARY 251 


Lariviére to do him the signal honour of accepting some break- 
fast. 

He sent quickly to the “Lion d’Or” for some pigeons; to the 
butcher’s for all the cutlets that were to be had; to Tuvache 
for cream; and to Lestiboudois for eggs; and the druggist him- 
self aided in the preparations, while Madame Homais was saying 
as she pulled together the strings of her jacket— 

“You must excuse us, sir, for in this poor place, when one 
hasn’t been told the night before——” 

“Wine glasses!” whispered Homais. 

“If only we were in town, we could fall back upon stuffed 
trotters.” 

“Be quiet! Sit down, doctor!” 

He thought fit, after the first few mouthfuls, to give some 
details as to the catastrophe. 

“We first had a feeling of siccity in the pharynx, then in- 
tolerable pains at the epigastrium, super-purgation, coma.” 

“But how did she poison herself?” 

“T don’t know, doctor, and I don’t even know where she can 
have procured the arsenious acid.” 

Justin, who was just bringing in a pile of plates, began to 
tremble. 

“What’s the matter?” said the chemist. 

At this question the young man dropped the whole lot on 
the ground with a crash. 

“Imbecile!” cried Homais, “awkward lout! blockhead! con- 
founded ass!” 

But suddenly controlling himself— 

“T wished, doctor, to make an analysis, and primo I delicately 
introduced a tube——” 

“You would have done better,’ said the physician, “to in- 
troduce your fingers into her throat.” 

His colleague was silent, having just before privately re- 
ceived a severe lecture about his emetic, so that this good 
Canivet, so arrogant and so verbose at the time of the club- 
foot, was to-day very modest. He smiled without ceasing in an 
approving manner. 

Homais dilated in Amphytrionic pride, and the affecting 
thought of Bovary vaguely contributed to his pleasure by a 
kind of egotistic reflex upon himself. Then the presence of the 
doctor transported him. He displayed his erudition, cited pell- 
mell cantharides, upas, the manchineel, vipers. 

“T have even read that various persons have found themselves 
under toxicological symptoms, and, as it were, thunderstricken 
by black-pudding that had been subjected to a too vehement 


252 MADAME BOVARY 


fumigation. At least, this was stated in a very fine report drawn 
up by one of our pharmaceutical chiefs, one of our masters, 
the illustrous Cadet de Gassicourt!” 

Madame Homais reappeared, carrying one of those shaky 
machines that are heated with spirits of wine; for Homais 
liked to make his coffee at table, having, moreover, torrefied 
it, pulverised it, and mixed it himself. 

“Saccharum, doctor?” said he, offering the sugar. 

Then he had all his children brought down, anxious to have 
the physician’s opinion on their constitutions. 

At last Monsieur Lariviére was about to leave, when Madame 
Homais asked for a consultation about her husband. He was 
making his blood too thick by going to sleep every evening after 
dinner. 

“Oh, it isn’t his blood that’s too thick,” said the physician. 

And, smiling a little at his unnoticed joke, the doctor opened 
the door. But the chemist’s shop was full of people; he had 
the greatest difficulty in getting rid of Monsieur Tuvache, who 
feared his spouse would get inflammation of the lungs, because 
she was in the habit of spitting on the ashes; then of Monsieur 
Binet, who sometimes experienced sudden attacks of great 
hunger; and of Madame Caron, who suffered from tinglings; 
of Lheureux, who had vertigo; of Lestiboudois, who had rheu- 
matism; and of Madame Lefrancois, who had heartburn. At 
last the three horses started; and it was the general opinion that 
he had not shown himself at all obliging. 

Public attention was distracted by the appearance of Monsieur 
Bournisien, who was going across the market with the holy 
oil. 

Homais, as was due to his principles, compared priests to 
ravens attracted by the odour of death. The sight of an ec- 
clesiastic was personally disagreeable to him, for the cassock 
made him think of the shroud, and he detested the one from 
some fear of the other. ¥ 

Nevertheless, not shrinking from what he called his mission, 
he returned to Bovary’s in company with Canivet, whom Mon- 
sieur Lariviere, before leaving, had strongly urged to make this 
visit; and he would, but for his wife’s objections, have taken 
his two sons with him, in order to accustom them to great 
occasions; that this might be a lesson, an example, a solemn 
picture, that should remain in their heads later on. 

The room when they went in was full of mournful solemnity. 
On the work-table, covered over with a white cloth, there were 
five or six small balls of cotton in a silver dish, near a large 
crucifix between two lighted candles. 


MADAME BOVARY doy, 253 


Emma, her chin sunken upon her breast, had her eyes in- 
ordinately wide open, and her poor hands wandered over the 
sheets with that hideous and soft movement of the dying, 
that seems as if they wanted already to cover themselves with 
the shroud. Pale as-a statue and with eyes red as fire, Charles, 
not weeping, stood opposite her at the foot of the. bed, while 
the priest, bending one knee, was muttering words in a low 
voice. 

She turned her face slowly, and seemed filled with joy on 
seeing suddenly the violet stole, no doubt finding again, in the 
midst of a temporary lull in her pain, the lost voluptuousness 
of her first mystical transports, with the visions of eternal 
beatitude that were beginning. 

The priest rose to take the crucifix; then she stretched for- 
ward her neck as one who is athirst, and glueing her lips to 
’ the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with all her 
expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that she had ever 
given. Then he recited the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam, 
dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began to give extreme 
_wunction. First, upon the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly 
pomp; then upon the nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm 
breeze and amorous odours; then upon the mouth, that had 
uttered lies, that had curled with pride and cried out in lewd- 
ness; then upon the hands that had delighted in sensual touches; 
and finally upon the soles of the feet, so swift of yore, when 
she was running to satisfy her desires, and that would now 
walk no more. 

The curé wiped his fingers, threw the bit of cotton dipped 
in oil into the fire, and came and sat down by the dying woman, 
to tell her that she must now blend her sufferings with those 
of Jesus Christ and abandon herself to the divine mercy. 

Finishing his exhortations, he tried to place in her hand a 
blessed candle, symbol of the celestial glory with which she was 
soon to be surrounded. Emma, too weak, could not close her 
fingers, and the taper, but for Monsieur Bournisien would have 
fallen to the ground. 

However, she was not quite so pale, and her face had an 
expression of serenity as if the sacrament had cured her. 

The priest did not fail to point this out; he even explained 
to Bovary that the Lord sometimes prolonged the life of per- 
sons when he thought it meet for their salvation; and Charles 
remembered the day when, so near death, she had received the 
communion. Perhaps there was no need to despair, he thought. 

In fact, she looked around her slowly, as one awakening 
from a dream: then in a distinct voice she asked for her look- 


254 MADAME BOVARY 


ing-glass, and remained some time bending over it, until the 
big tears fell from her eyes. Then she turned away her head 
with a sigh and fell back upon the pillows. 

Her chest soon began panting rapidly; the whole of her tongue 
protruded from her mouth; her eyes, as they rolled, grew paler, 
like the two globes of a lamp that is going out, so that one 
might have thought her already dead but for the fearful labour- 
ing of her ribs, shaken by violent breathing, as if the soul were 
struggling to free itself. Félicité knelt down before the crucifix, 
and the druggist himself slightly pent his knees, while Monsieur 
Canivet looked out vaguely at the Place. Bournisien had again 
begun to pray, his face bowed against the edge of the bed, his 
long black cassock trailing behind him in the room. Charles 
was on the other side, on his knees, his arms outstretched to- 
wards Emma. He had taken her hands and pressed them, shud- 
dering at every beat of her heart, as at the shaking of a falling 
ruin. As the death-rattle became stronger the priest prayed 
faster; his prayers mingled with the stifled sobs of Bovary, 
and sometimes all seemed lost in the muffled murmur of the 
Latin syllables that tolled like a passing bell. 

Suddenly on the pavement was heard a loud noise of clogs 
and the clattering of a stick; and a voice rose—a raucous voice 
—that sang— 


“Maids in the warmth of a summer day 
Dream of love and of love alway.” 


Emma raised herself like a galvanised corpse, her hair un- — 


done, her eyes fixed, staring. 


“Where the sickle blades have been, 
Nannette, gathering ears of corn, 
Passes bending down, my queen, 
To the earth where they were born.” 


“The blind man!” she cried. And Emma began to laugh, 
an atrocious, frantic, despairing laugh, thinking she saw the 
hideous face of the poor wretch that stood out against the 
eternal night like a menace. 


“The wind is strong this summer day, 
Her petticoat has flown away.” 


She fell back upon the mattress in a convulsion. They all drew 
near. She was dead. 


MADAME BOVARY | 255 


IX 


"THERE is always after the death of any one a kind of stupe- 
faction; so difficult is it to grasp this advent of nothingness 
and to resign ourselves to believe in it. But still, when he saw 
that she did not move, Charles threw himself upon her, crying— 

“Farewell! farewell!” 

Homais and Canivet dragged him from the room. 

“Restrain yourself !” 

“Yes,” said he, struggling, “I’ll be quiet. I'll not do anything. 
But leave me alone. I want to see her. She is my wife!” 

And he wept. 

“Cry,” said the chemist; “let nature take her course; that will 
solace you.” . 

Weaker than a child, Charles let himself be led downstairs 
into the sitting-room, and Monsieur Homais soon went home. 
On the Place he was accosted by the blind man, who, having 
dragged himself as far as Yonville in the hope of getting the 
antiphlogistic pommade, was asking every passer-by where the 
druggist lived. 

“There now! as if I hadn’t got other fish to fry. Well, so 
much the worse; you must come later on.” 

And he entered the shop hurriedly. 

He had to write two letters, to prepare a soothing potion for 
Bovary, to invent some lie that would conceal the poisoning, 
and work it up into an article for the “Fanal,” without counting 
the people who were waiting to get the news from him; and 
when the Yonvillers had all heard his story of the arsenic that 
she had mistaken for sugar in making a vanilla cream, Homais 
once more returned to Bovary’s. [ 

He found him alone (Monsieur Canivet had left), sitting in 
an arm-chair near the window, staring with an idiotic look at 
the flags of the floor. 

“Now,” said the chemist, “you ought yourself to fix the hour 
for the ceremony.” 

“Why? What ceremony?” Then, in a stammering, fright- 
ened voice, “Oh, no! not that. No! I want to see her here.” 

Homais, to keep himself in countenance, took up a water- 
bottle on the whatnot to water the geraniums. 

“Ah! thanks,” said Charles; “you are good.” 

But he did not finish, choking beneath the crowd of memories 
that this action of the druggist recalled to him. 

Then to distract him, Homais thought fit to talk a little hor- 


256 MADAME BOVARY 


ticulture: plants wanted humidity. Charles bowed his head in 
sign of approbation. 

“Besides, the fine days will soon be here again.” 

“Ah!” said Bovary. 

The druggist, at his wit’s end, began softly to draw aside the 
small window-curtain. 

“Hallo! there’s Monsieur Tuvache passing.” 

Charles repeated like a machine— 

“Monsieur Tuvache passing!” 

Homais did not dare to speak to him again about the funeral 
arrangements; it was the priest who succeeded in reconciling 
him to them. 

He shut himself up in his consulting-room, took a pen, and 
after sobbing for some time, wrote— 

“T wish her to be buried in her wedding-dress, with white 
shoes, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out over her 
shoulders. Three coffins, one of oak, one of mahogany, one 
of lead. Let no one say anything to me. I shall have strength. 
Over all there is to be placed a large piece of green velvet. 

This is my wish; see that it is done.” 

\ The two men were much surprised at Bovary’s romantic 
ideas. The chemist at once went to him and said— 

“This velvet seems to me a superfetation. Besides, the ex- 
pense——” 

“What's that to you?” cried Charles. “Leave me! You did 
not love her. Go!” 

The priest took him by the arm for a turn in the garden. He 
discoursed on the vanity of earthly things. God was very great, 
was very good: one must submit to his decrees without a mur- 
mur; nay, must even thank him. 

Charles burst out into blasphemies: “I hate your God!” 

“The spirit of rebellion is still upon you,” sighed the eccelsi- 
astic. 

Bovary was far away. He was walking with great strides 
along by the wall, near the espalier, and he ground his teeth; 
he raised to heaven looks of malediction, but not so much as a 
leaf stirred. 

A fine rain was falling: Charles, whose chest was bare, at — 
last began to shiver; he went in and sat down in the kitchen. 

At six o’clock a noise like a clatter of old iron was heard — 
on the Place; it was the “Hirondelle” coming in, and he re- 
mained with his forehead against the window-pane, watching 
all the passengers get out, one after the other. Félicité put 
down a mattress for him in the drawing-room. He threw 
himself upon it and fell asleep. 


MADAME BOVARY 257 


Although a philosopher, Monsieur Homais respected the dead. 
So bearing no grudge to poor Charles, he came back again in 
the evening to sit up with the body, bringing with him three 
volumes and a pocket-book for taking notes. 
_ Monsieur Bournisien was there, and two large candles were 
burning at the head of the bed, that had been taken out of the. 
alcove. The druggist, on whom the silence weighed, was not 
long before he began formulating some regrets about this 
“unfortunate young woman,” and the priest replied that there 
was nothing to do now but bray for her. 
“Yet,” Homais went on, “one of two things; either she died 
in a state of grace (as the Church has it), and then she has 
no need of our prayers; or else she departed impertinent (that 
is, I believe, the ecclesiastical expression), and then——” 
Bournisien interrupted him, replying testily that it was none 
the less necessary to pray. 
“But,” objected the chemist, “since God knows all our needs, 
what can be the good of prayer?” 
“What!” cried the ecclesiastic, “prayer! Why, aren’t you a 
Christian ?” 
“Excuse me,” said Homais; “I admire Christianity. To begin 
with, it enfranchised the slaves, introduced into the world a 
_ morality-——” 
“That isn’t the question. All the texts——” 
“Oh! oh! As to texts, look at history; it is known that all 

the texts have been falsified by the Jesuits.” 
_ Charles came in, and advancing towards the bed, slowly drew 
the curtains. 
_ Emma’s head was turned towards her right shoulder, the 
corner of her mouth, which was open, seemed like a black! hole 
at the lower part of her face; her two thumbs were bent into 
i the palms of her hands; a iad of white dust besprinkled her 
lashes, and her eyes were beginning to disappear in that viscous 
pallor that looks like a thin web, as if spiders had spun it over. 
i The sheet sunk in from her breast to her knees, and then rose 
at the tips of her toes, and it seemed to Charles that infinite” 
masses, an enormous load, were weighing upon her. 

The church clock struck two. They could hear the loud mur- 
mur of the river flowing in the darkness at the foot of the 
terrace. Monsieur Bournisien from time to time blew his nose 
noisily, and Homais’ pen was scratching over the paper. 
_ “Come, my good friend,” he said, “withdraw; this spectacle 
is tearing you to pieces.” 

Charles once gone, the chemist and the curé recommenced 
their discussions. 


” 





258 MADAME BOVARY 


“Read Voltaire,” said the one, “read D’Holbach, read the 
‘Encyclopedia’ !” 

“Read the ‘Letters of some Portuguese Jews,’” said the other; 
“read ‘The Meaning of Christianity,’ by Nicolas, formerly a 
magistrate.” 

They grew warm, they grew red, they both talked at once 
without listening to each other. Bournisien was scandalised 
at such audacity; Homais marvelled at such stupidity; and 
they were on the point of insulting one another when Charles 
suddenly reappeared. A fascination drew him. He was con- 
tinually coming upstairs. 

He stood opposite her, the better to see her, and he lost 
himself in a contemplation so deep that it was no longer painful. 

He recalled stories of catalepsy, the marvels of magnetism, 
and he said to himself that by willing it with all his force he 
might perhaps succeed in reviving her. Once he even bent 
towards her, and cried in a low voice, “Emma! Emma!” His 
strong breathing made the flames of the candles tremble against 
the wall. 

At daybreak Madame Bovary senior arrived. Charles as 
he embraced her burst into another flood of tears. She tried, 
as the chemist had done, to make some remarks to him on 
the expenses of the funeral. He became so angry that she was 
silent, and he even commissioned her to go to town at once and 
buy what was necessary. 

Charles remained alone the whole afternoon; they had taken 
Berthe to Madame Homais’; Félicité was in the room upstairs 
~vith Madame Lefrancois. 

In the evening he had some visitors. He rose, pressed their 
hands, unable to speak. Then they sat down near one another, 
and formed a large semicircle in front of the fire. With low- 
ered faces, and swinging one leg crossed over the other knee, 
they uttered deep sighs at intervals; each one was inordinately 
bored, and yet none would be the first to go. 

Homais, when he returned at nine oclock (for the last two 
days only Homais seemed to have been on the Place), was 
laden with a stock of camphor, of benzine, and aromatic herbs. 
He also carried a large jar full of chlorine water, to keep off 
all miasmata. Just then the servant, Madame Lefrancois, and 
Madame Bovary senior were busy about Emma, finishing dress- 
ing her, and they were drawing down the long stiff veil that 
covered her to her satin shoes. 

Félicité was sobbing—“Ah! my poor mistress! my poor mis- 
tress !” 

“Look at her,” said the landlady, sighing; “how pretty she 


! 


MADAME BOVARY 259 


still is! Now, couldn’t you swear she was going to get up in a 
minute ?” 

Then they bent over her to put on her wreath. They had to 
raise the head a little, and a rush of black liquid issued, as if 
she were vomiting, from her mouth. 

“Oh, goodness! The dress; take care!” cried Madame Le= 
francois. “Now, just come and help,” she said to the chemist. 
“Perhaps you're afraid?” 

“T afraid?” replied he, shrugging his shoulders. “I dare say! 
I’ve seen all sorts of things at the hospital when I was studying 
pharmacy. We used to make punch in the dissecting room! 
Nothingness does not terrify a philosopher; and, as I often 
say, I even intend to leave my body to the hospitals, in order, 
later on, to serve science.” 

The curé on his arrival inquired how Monsieur Bovary was, 
and, on the reply of the druggist, went on—“The blow, you see, 
is still too recent.” 

Then Homais congratulated him on not being exposed, like 
other people, to the loss of a beloved companion; whence there 
followed a discussion on the celibacy of priests. 

“For,” said the chemist, “it is unnatural that a man should do 
without women! There have been crimes——” 

“But, good heaven!” cried the ecclesiastic, “how do you expect 
an individual who is married to keep the secrets of the con- 
fessional, for example?” 

Homais fell foul of the confessional. Bournisien defended 
it; he enlarged on the acts of restitution that it brought about. 
He cited various anecdotes about thieves who had suddenly 
become honest. Military men on approaching the tribunal. of 
penitence had felt the scales fall from their eyes. At Fribourg 
there was a minister—— 

His companion was asleep. Then he felt somewhat stifled 
by the over-heavy atmosphere of the room; he opened thé 
window; this awoke the chemist. 

“Come, take a pinch of snuff,” he said to him. “Take it, 
it'll relieve you.’ 

A continual barking was heard in the distance. “Do yov 
hear that dog howling?” said the chemist. 

“They smell the dead,” replied the priest. “It’s like bees; 
they leave their hives on the decease of any person.” 

Homais made no remark upon these prejudices, for he had 
again dropped asleep. Monsieur Bournisien, stronger than he, 
went on moving his lips gently for some time, then insensibly 
his chin sank down, he let fall his big black boot, and begar' 
to snore. 


260 MADAME BOVARY 


They sat opposite one another, with protruding stomachs, 
puffed-up faces, and frowning looks, after so much disagree- 
ment uniting at last in the same human weakness, and they 
moved no more than the corpse by their side, that seemed to 
be sleeping. 

Charles coming in did not wake them. It was the last time; 
he came to bid her farewell. 

The aromatic herbs were still smoking, and spirals of bluish 
vapour blended at the window-sash with the fog that was 
coming in. There were few stars, and the night was warm. 
The wax of the candles fell in great drops upon the sheets of 
the bed. Charles watched them burn, tiring h’s eyes against the 
giare of their yellow flame. 

The watering on the satin gown shimmered white as moon- 
light. Emma was lost beneath it; and it seemed to him that, 
spreading beyond her own self, she blended confusedly with 
everything around her—the silence, the night, the passing wind, 
the damp odours rising from the ground. 

Then suddenly he saw her in the garden at Tostes, on a- 
bench against the thorn hedge, or else at Rouen in the streets, 
on the threshold of their house, in the yard at Bertaux. He 
again heard the laughter of the happy boys beneath the apple-— 
trees: the room was filled with the perfume of her hair; and 
her dress rustled in his arms with a noise like electricity. The 
dress was still the same. | 

For a long while he thus recalled all his lost joys, her atti- 
tudes, her movements, the sound of her voice. Upon one fit 
of despair followed another, and even others, inexhaustible as 
the waves of an overflowing sea. 

A terrible curiosity seized him. Slowly, with the tips of his 
fingers, palpitating, he lifted her veil. But he uttered a cry of 
horror that awoke the other two. 

They dragged him down into the sitting-room. Then Félicité 
came up to say that he wanted some of her hair. : 

“Cut some off,” replied the druggist. 

And as she did not dare to, he himself stepped forward, scis- | 
sors in hand. He trembled so that he pierced the skin of the 
temple in several places. At last, stiffening himself against 
emotion, Homais gave two or three great cuts at random that 
left white patches amongst that beautiful black hair. t 

The chemist and the curé plunged anew into their occupations, ~ 
not without sleeping from time to time, of which they accused 
each other reciprocally at each fresh awakening. Then Monsieur 
Bournisien sprinkled the room with holy water and Homais — 
threw a little chlorine water on the floor. 


MADAME BOVARY 7 . 





Félicité had taken care to put on the chest of drawers, for 
each of them, a bottle of brandy, some cheese, and a large roll; 
and the druggist, who could not hold out any longer, about four 
in the morning sighed— 

“My word! I should like to take some sustenance.” 

The priest did not need any persuading; he went out to go 
and say mass, came back, and then they ate and hob-nobbed, 
giggling a little without knowing why, stimulated by that vague 
gaiety that comes upon us after times of sadness, and at the 
last glass the priest said to the druggist, as he clapped him 
on the shoulder— 

“We shall end by understanding one another.” 

In the passage downstairs they met the undertaker’s men, 
who were coming in. Then Charles for two hours had to suffer 
the torture of hearing the hammer resound against the wood. 
Next day they lowered her into her oak coffin, that was fitted 
into the other two; but as the bier was too large, they had to 
fill up the gaps with the wool of a mattress. At last, when the 
three lids had been planed down, nailed, soldered, it was placed 
outside in front of the door; the house was thrown open, and 
the people of Yonville began to flock round. 

Old Rouault arrived, and fainted on the Place when he saw 
the black cloth. 


x 


HE had only received the chemist’s letter thirty-six hours 

after the event; and, from consideration for his feelings, 
Homais had so worded it that it was impossible to make out 
what it was all about. 

First, the old fellow had fallen as if struck by apoplexy. 
Next, he understood that she was not dead, but she might be. 
At last, he had put on his blouse, taken his hat, fastened his 
spurs to his boots, and set out at full speed; and the whole of 
the way old Rouault, panting, was torn by anguish. Once even 
he was obliged to dismount. He was dizzy; he heard voices 
round about him; he felt himself going mad. 

Day broke. He saw three black hens asleep in a tree. He 
shuddered, horrified at this omen. Then he promised the Holy 
Virgin three chasubles for the church, and that he would go 
barefooted from the cemetery at Bertaux to the chapel of 
Vassonville. 

He entered Maromme shouting for the people of the inn, 
burst open the door with a thrust of his shoulder, made for a 
sack of oats, emptied a bottle of sweet cider into the manger, 





MADAME BOVARY 





and again mounted his nag, whose feet struck fire as it dashed 
along. 

He said to himself that no doubt they would save her; the 
doctors would discover some remedy surely. He remembered 
all the miraculous cures he had been told about. Then she 
appeared to him dead. She was there, before his eyes, lying 
on her back in the middle of the road. He reined up, and the 
hallucination disappeared. 

At Quincampoix, to give himself heart, he drank three cups 
of coffee one after the other. He fancied they had made a 
mistake in the name in writing. He looked for the letter in 
his pocket, felt it there, but did not dare to open it. 

At last he began to think it was all a joke; some one’s spite, 
the jest of some wag; and besides, if she were dead, one would 
have known it. But no! There was nothing extraordinary 


about the country; the sky was blue, the trees swayed; a flock © 
of sheep passed. He saw the village; he was seen coming bend- — 


ing forward upon his horse, belabouring it with great blows, 
the girths dripping with blood. 

When he had recovered consciousness, he fell, weeping, into 
Bovary’s arms: “My girl! Emma! my child! tell me——” 

The other replied, sobbing, “I don’t know! I don’t know! It’s 
a curse!” 

The druggist separated them. “These horrible details are 
useless. I will tell this gentleman all about it. Here are the 
people coming. Dignity! Come now! Philosophy!” 

The poor fellow tried to show himself brave, and repeated 
several times, “Yes! courage!” 

“Oh,” cried the old man, “so I will have, by God! I'll go 
along o’ her to the end!” 

The bell began tolling. All was ready; they had to start. 
And seated in a stall of the choir, side by side, they saw pass 
and repass in front of them continually the three chanting 
choristers. 

The serpent-player was blowing with all his might. Monsieur 
Bournisien, in full vestments, was singing in a shrill voice. 
He bowed before the tabernacle, raising his hands, stretched out 


4 
{ 


his arms. Lestiboudois went about the church with his whale- © 
bone stick. The bier stood near the lectern, between four rows © 
of candles. Charles felt inclined to get up and put them out. — 


Yet he tried to stir himself to a feeling of devotion, to throw 
himself into the hope of a future life in which he should see 
her again. He imagined to himself she had gone on a long 
journey, far away, for a long time. But when he thought of 
her lying there, and that all was over, that they would lay 


MADAME BOVARY 263 


her in the earth, he was seized with a fierce, gloomy, despairful 
rage. At times he thought he felt nothing more, and he en- 


'joyed this lull in his pain, whilst at the same time he re- 


proached himself for being a wretch. 

The sharp noise of an iron-ferruled stick was heard on the 
stones, striking them at irregular intervals. It came from 
the end of the church, and stopped short at the lower aisles. 
A man in a coarse brown jacket knelt down painfully. It was 
Hippolyte, the stable-boy at the “Lion d’Or.” He had put on 


' his new leg. 


One of the choristers went round the nave making a col- 
lection, and the coppers chinked one after the other on the 
silver plate. 

“Oh, make haste! I am in pain!” cried Bovary, angrily throw- 


ing him a five-franc piece. The churchman thanked him with a 


deep bow. 
They sang, they knelt, they stood up; it was endless! He 


- remembered that once, in the early times, they had been to mass 





ee 


_ together, and they had sat down on the other side, on the right, 
by the wall. The bell began again. There was a great moving 


of chairs; the bearers slipped their three staves under the 


coffin, and every one left the church. 


Then Justin appeared at the door of the shop. He suddenly 
went in again, pale, staggering. 

People were at the windows to see the procession pass. 
Charles at the head walked erect. He affected a brave air, and 
saluted with a nod those who, coming out from the lanes or 
from their doors, stood amidst the crowd. 

The six men, three on either side, walked slowly, panting 
a little. The priests, the choristers, and the two choir-boys 
recited the De profundis, and their voices echoed over the 
fields, rising and falling with their undulations. Sometimes! 


they disappeared in the windings of the path; but the great 


silver cross rose always between the trees. 

The women followed in black cloaks with turned-down hoods; 
each of them carried in her hands a large lighted candle, and 
Charles felt himself growing weaker at this continual repetition 
of prayers and torches, beneath this oppressive odour of wax 
and of cassocks. A fresh breeze was blowing; the rye and 


'colza were sprouting, little dew-drops trembled at the roadsides 


and on the hawthorn hedges. All sorts of joyous sounds filled 
the air; the jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the 
crowing of a cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling of 
a foal running away under the apple-trees. The pure sky was 
fretted with rosy clouds; a bluish haze rested upon the cots 


264 MADAME BOVARY 


covered with iris. Charles as he passed recognised each court- 
yard. He remembered mornings like this, when, after visiting 
some patient, he came out from one and returned to her. 

The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up from 
time to time, laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers walked 
more slowly, and it advanced with constant jerks, like a boat 
that pitches with every wave. 

They reached the cemetery. The men went right down to a 
place in the grass where a grave was dug. They ranged them- 
selves all round; and while the priest spoke, the red soil thrown 
up at the sides kept noiselessly slipping down at the corners. 

Then when the four ropes were arranged the coffin was 
placed upon them. He watched it descend; it seemed descend- 
ing for ever. At last a thud was heard; the ropes creaked as 
they were drawn up. Then Bournisien took the spade handed 
to him by Lestiboudois; with his left hand all the time sprinkling 
water, with the right he vigourously threw in a large spadeful; 
and the wood of the coffin, struck by the pebbles, gave forth that 
dread sound that seems to us the reverberation of eternity. 

The ecclesiastic passed the holy water sprinkler to his neigh- 
bour. This was Homais. He swung it gravely, then handed 
it to Charles, who sank to his knees in the earth and threw in 
handfuls of it, crying, “Adieu!” He sent her kisses; he dragged 
himself towards the grave, to engulf himself with her. They 
led him away, and he soon grew calmer, feeling perhaps, like 
the others, a vague satisfaction that it was all over. 

Old Rouault on his way back began quietly smoking a pipe, 
which Homais in his innermost conscience thought not quite the 
thing. He also noticed that Monsieur Binet had not been pres- 
ent, and that Tuvache had “made off” after mass, and that 
Theodore, the notary’s servant, wore a blue coat, “as if one 
could not have got a black coat, since that is the custom, by 
Jove!” And to share his observations with others he went from 
group to group. They were deploring Emma’s death, especially 
Lheureux, who had not failed to come to the funeral. 

“Poor little woman! What a trouble for her husband!” 

The druggist continued, “Do you know that but for me he 
would have committed some fatal attempt upon himself?” 

“Such a good woman! To think that I saw her only last Sat- 
urday in my shop.” 

“T haven’t had leisure,” said Homais, “to prepare a few words 
that I would have cast upon her tomb.” 

Charles on getting home undressed, and old Rouault put on 
his blue blouse. It was a new one, and as he had often during 
the journey wiped his eyes on the sleeves, the dye had stained 


MADAME BOVARY 265 


his face, and the traces of tears made lines in the layer of dust 
that covered it. 

Madame Bovary senior was with them. All three were silent. 
At last the old fellow sighed— 

“Do you remember, my friend, that I went to Tostes once 
when you had just lost your first deceased? I consoled you at 
that time. I thought of something to say then, but now——” 
Then, with a loud groan that shook his whole chest, “Ah! this 
is the end for me. do you see! I saw my wife go, then my 
son, and now to-day it’s my daughter.” 

He wanted to go back at once to Bertaux, saying that he 
could not sleep in this house. He even refused to see his’ 
grand-daughter. 

“No, no! It would grieve me too much. Only you'll kiss: 
her many times for me. Good-bye! youre a good fellow! | 
And then I shall never forget that,” he said, slapping his thigh. 
“Never fear, you shall always have your turkey.” ; 

But when he reached the top of the hill he turned back, as 
he had turned once before on the road of Saint-Victor when 
he had parted from her. The windows of the village were 
all on fire beneath the slanting rays of the sun sinking behind 
the field. He put his hand over his eyes, and saw in the horizon 
an enclosure of walls, where trees here and there formed black 
clusters between white stones; then he went on his way at a 
gentle trot, for his nag had gone lame. 

Despite their fatigue, Charles and his mother stayed very 
long that evening talking together. They spoke of the days 
of the past and of the future. She would come to live at Yon- 
ville; she would keep house for him; they would never part 
again. She was ingenious and caressing, rejoicing in her heart 
at gaining once more an affection that had wandered from her 
for so many years. Midnight struck. The village as usual was 
silent, and Charles, awake, thought always of her. 

Rodolphe, who, to distract himself, had been rambling about 
the wood all day, was sleeping quietly in his chateau, and Léon, 
down yonder, always slept. : 

There was another who at that hour was not asleep. 

On the grave between the pine-trees a child was on his knees 
weeping, and his heart, rent by sobs, was beating in the shadow 
beneath the load of an immense regret, sweeter than the moon 
and fathomless as the night. The gate suddenly grated. It was 
Lestiboudois; he came to fetch his spade, that he had forgotten. 
He recognised Justin climbing over the wall, and at last knew 
who was the culprit who stole his potatoes. 


266 MADAME BOVARY 


XI 


"THE next day Charles had the child brought back. She asked 

for her mamma. They told her she was away; that she 
would bring her back some playthings. Berthe spoke of her 
again several times, then at last thought no more of her. The 
child’s gaiety broke Bovary’s heart, and he had to bear besides 
the intolerable consolations of the chemist. 

Money troubles soon began again, Monsieur Lheureux urging 
on anew his friend Vingart, and Charles pledged himself for 
exorbitant sums; for he would never consent to let the smallest 
of the things that had belonged to her be sold. His mother was 
exasperated with him; he grew even more angry than she did. 
He had altogether changed. She left the house. 

Then every one began “taking advantage” of him. Made- 
moiselle Lempereur presented a bill for six months’ teaching, 
although Emma had never taken a lesson (despite the receipted 
bill she had shown Bovary); it was an arrangement between 
the two women. The man at the circulating library demanded 
three years’ subscriptions; Mére Rolet claimed the postage due 
for some twenty letters, and when Charles asked for an ex- 
planation, she had the delicacy to reply— 

“Oh, I don’t know. It was for her business affairs.” 

With every debt he paid Charles thought he had come to 
the end of them. But others followed ceaselessly. He sent in 
accounts for professional attendance. He was shown the letters 
his wife had written. Then he had to apologise. 

Félicite now wore Madame Bovary’s gowns; not all, for he 
had kept some of them, and he went to look at them in her 
dressing-room, locking himself up there; she was about her 
height, and often Charles, seeing her from behind, was seized 
-with an illusion, and cried out— 

“Oh, stay, stay!” 

But at Whitsuntide she ran away from Yonville, carried off 
by Theodore, stealing all that was left of the wardrobe. 

It was about this time that the widow Dupuis had the honour 
to inform him of the “marriage of Monsieur Léon Dupuis her 
son, notary at Yvetot, to Mademoiselle Léocadié Lebeeuf of 
Bondeville.” Charles, among the other congratulations he sent 
him, wrote this sentence— 

‘How glad my poor wife would have been!” 

One day when, wandering aimlessly about the house, he had 
gone up to the attic, he felt a pellet of fine paper under his 
slipper. He opened it and read: “Courage, Emma, courage. I 


MADAME BOVARY 267 


would not bring misery into your life.” It was Rodolphe’s let- 
ter, fallen to the ground between the boxes, where it had re- 
mained, and that the wind from the dormer window had just 
blown towards the door. And Charles stood, motionless and 
staring, in the very same place where, long, ago, Emma, in de- 
spair, and paler even than he, had thought of dying. At last 
he discovered a small R at the bottom of the second page. What 
did this mean? He remembered Rodolphe’s attentions, his sud- 
den disappearance, his constrained air when they had met two 
or three times since. But the respectful tone of the letter de- 
ceived him. 

“Perhaps they loved one another platonically,” he said to 
himself. 

Besides, Charles was not of those who go to the bottom of 
things; he shrank from the proofs, and his vague jealousy was 
lost in the immensity of his woe. 

Every one, he thought, must have adored her; all men as- 
suredly must have coveted her. She seemed but the more 
beautiful to him for this; he was seized with a lasting, furious 
desire for her, that inflamed his despair, and that was boundless, 
because it was now unrealisable. 

To please her, as if she were still living, he adopted her 
predilections, her ideas; he bought patent leather boots and 
took to wearing white cravats. He put cosmetics on his mous- 
tache, and, like her, signed notes of hand. She corrupted him 
from beyond the grave. 

He was obliged to sell his silver piece by piece; next he 
sold the drawing-room furniture. All the rooms were stripped; 
but the bedroom, her own room, remained as before. After his 
dinner Charles went up there. He pushed the round table in 
front of the fire, and drew up her arm-chair. He sat down 
opposite it. A candle burnt in one of the gilt candlesticks. 
Berthe by his side was painting prints. 

He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed, with 
laceless boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore torn down 
to the hips; for the charwoman took no care of her. But she 
was so sweet, so pretty, and her little head bent forward so 
gracefully, letting the dear fair hair fall over her rosy cheeks, 
that an infinite joy came upon him, a happiness mingled with 
bitterness, like those ill-made wines that taste of resin. He 
mended her toys, made her puppets from cardboard, or sewed 
up half-torn dolls. Then, if his eyes fell upon the workbox, a 
ribbon lying about, or even a pin left in a crack of the table, 
he began to dream, and looked so sad that she became as sad 
as he. 


268 MADAME BOVARY 


No one now came to see them, for Justin had run away to 
Rouen, where he was a grocer’s assistant, and the druggist’s 
children saw less and less of the child, Monsieur Homais not 
caring, seeing the difference of their social position, to continue 
the intimacy. 

The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure with 
the pommade, had gone back to the hill of Bois-Guillaume, where 
ne told the travellers of the vain attempt of the druggist, to 
such an extent, that Homais when he went to town hid himself 
_ behind the curtains of the “Hirondelle” to avoid meeting him. 
_ He detested him, and wishing, in the interests of his own repu- 
tation, to get rid of him at all costs, he directed against him a 


secret battery, that betrayed the depth of his intellect and the 


baseness of his vanity. Thus, for six consecutive months, one 
could read in the “Fanal de Rouen” editorials such as these— 

“All who bend their steps towards the fertile plains of Picardy 
have, no doubt, remarked, by the Bois-Guillaume hill, a wretch 
suffering from a horrible facial wound. He importunes, perse- 
cutes one, and levies a regular tax on all travellers. Are we 
still living in the monstrous times of the Middle Ages, when 
vagabonds were permitted to display in our public places leprosy 
and scrofulas they had brought back from the Crusades?” 

Or— 

“In spite of the laws against vagabondage, the approaches to 
our great towns continue to be infected by bands of beggars. 
Some are seen going about alone, and these are not, perhaps, the 
least dangerous. What are our ediles about?” 

Then Homais invented anecdotes— 

“Yesterday, by the Bois-Guillaume hill, a skittish horse——” 
And then followed the story of an accident caused by the pres- 
ence of the blind man. 

He managed so well that the fellow was locked up. But he 
was released. He began again, and Homais began again. It 
was a struggle. Homais won it, for his foe was condemned to 
life-long confinement in an asylum. 

This success emboldened him, and henceforth there was no 
longer a dog run over, a barn burnt down, a woman beaten in 
the parish, of which he did not immediately inform the public, 
guided always by the love of progress and the hate of priests. 
He instituted comparisons between the elementary and clerical 
schools to the detriment of the latter; called to mind the mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew dpropos of a grant of one hundred 
francs to the church, and denounced abuses, aired new views. 


That was his phrase. Homais was digging and delving; he was 


becoming dangerous. 


MADAME BOVARY 269 


However, he was stifling in the narrow limits of journalism, 
and soon a book, a work was necessary to him. Then he com- 
posed “General Statistics of the Canton of Yonville, followed by 
Climatological Remarks.” The statistics drove him to philosophy. 
He busied himself with great questions: the social problem, 
moralisation of the poorer classes, pisciculture, caoutchouc, rail- 
ways, &c. He even began to blush at being a bourgeois. He 
affected the artistic style, he smoked. He bought two chic 
Pompadour statuettes to adorn his drawing-room. 

He by no means gave up his shop. On the contrary, he kept 
well abreast of new discoveries. He followed the great move- 
ment of chocolates; he was the first to introduce “cocoa” and 
“revalenta” into the Seine-Inférieure. He was enthusiastic about 
the hydro-electric Pulvermacher chains; he wore one himself, 
and when at night he took off his flannel vest, Madame Homais 
stood quite dazzled before the golden spiral beneath which he 
was hidden, and felt her ardour redouble for this man more 
bandaged than a Scythian, and splendid as one of the Magi. 

He had fine ideas about Emma’s tomb. First he proposed a 
broken column with some drapery, next a pyramid, then a Tem- 
ple of Vesta, a sort of rotunda, or else a “mass of ruins.” And 
in all his plans Homais always stuck to the weeping willow, 
which he looked upon as the indispensable symbol of sorrow. 

Charles and he made a journey to Rouen together to look 
at some tombs at a funeral furnisher’s, accompanied by an 
artist, one Vaufrylard, a friend of Bridoux’s, who made puns 
all the time. At last, after having examined some hundred 
designs, having ordered an estimate and made another journey 
to Rouen, Charles decided in favour of a mausoleum, which on 
the two principal sides was to have “a spirit bearing an ex- 
tinguished torch.” 

As to the inscription, Homais could think of nothing so fine 
as Sta viator, and he got no further; he racked his brain, he 
constantly repeated Sta viator. At last he hit upon Amabilem . 
conjugem calcas, which was adopted. 

A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually. thinking 
‘of Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desperate as he felt this 
image fading from his memory in spite of all efforts to retain it. 
Yet every night he dreamt of her; it was always the same dream. 
‘He drew near her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell 
‘into decay in his arms. 
| For a week he was seen going to church in the evening. Mon- 
‘sieur Bournisien even paid him two or three visits, then gave 
him up. Moreover, the old fellow was growing intolerant, 
|fanatic, said Homais. He thundered against the spirit of the 
he 


270 MADAME BOVARY 


age, and never failed, every other week, in his sermon, to re- 
count the death agony of Voltaire, who died devouring his ex- 
¢rements, as every one knows. 

tn spite of the economy with which Bovary lived, he was far 
from being able to pay off his old debts. Lheureux refused 
to renew any more bills. A distraint became imminent. Then 
he appealed to his mother, who consented to let him take a 
mortgage on her property, but with a great many recrimina- 
tions against Emma; and in return for her sacrifice she asked 
for a shawl that had escaped the depredations of Feélicité. 
Charles refused to give it her; they quarrelled. 

She made the first overtures of reconciliation by offering to 
have the little girl, who could help her in the house, to live with 
her. Charles consented to this, but when the time for parting 
came, all his courage failed him. Then there was a final, com- 
plete rupture. 

As his affections vanished, he clung more closely to the love 
of his child. She made him anxious, however, for she coughed 
sometimes, and had red spots on her cheeks. 

Opposite his house, flourishing and merry, was the family of 
the chemist, with whom everything was prospering. Napoléon 
helped him in the laboratory, Athalie embroidered him a skull- 
cap, Irma cut out rounds of paper to cover the preserves, and 
Franklin recited Pythagoras’ table in a breath. He was the 
happiest of fathers, the most fortunate of men. 

Not so! A secret ambition devoured him. Homais hankered 
after the cross of the Legion of Honour. He had plenty of. 
claims to it. 

“First, having at the time of the cholera distinguished my-, 
self by a boundless devotion; second, by having published, at) 
my expense, various works of public utility, such as” (and he 
recalled his pamphlet entitled, “Cider, its manufacture and ef- 
fects,” besides observations on the lanigerous plant-louse, sent 
to the Academy; his volume of statistics, and down to his phar- 
maceutical thesis) ; “without counting that I am a member of 
several learned societies’ (he was member of a single one). 

“In short!” he cried, making a pirouette, “if it were only for 
distinguishing myself at fires!” 

Then Homais inclined towards the Government. He secretly 
did the prefect great service during the elections. He sold him- 
self—in a word, prostituted himself. He even addressed a 
petition to the sovereign in which he implored him to “do him 
justice ;” he called him “our good king,” and. compared him to 
Henri IV. 

And every morning the druggist rushed for the paper to see 


MADAME BOVARY 271 


'f{ his nomination were in it. It was never there. At last, 
anable to bear it any longer, he had a grass plot in his garden 
jesigned to represent the Star of the Cross of Honour, with 
wo little strips of grass running from the top to imitate the 
‘ibband. He walked round it with folded arms, meditating on 
the folly of the Government and the ingratitude of men. 

From respect, or from a sort of sensuality that made him 
carry on his investigations slowly, Charles had not yet opened 
the secret drawer of a rosewood desk which Emma had gen- 
srally used. One day, however, he sat down before it, turned 
the key, and pressed the spring. All Léon’s letters were there. 
There could be no doubt this time. He devoured them to the 
rery last, ransacked every corner, all the furniture, all the 
irawers, behind the walls, sobbing, crying aloud, distraught, 
nad. He found a box and broke it open with a kick. Ro- 
lolphe’s portrait flew full in his face in the midst of the over- 
urned love-letters. 

People wondered at his despondency. He never went out, 
‘aw no one, refused even to visit his patients. Then they said 
‘he shut himself up to drink.” 

Sometimes, however, some curious person climbed on to the 
rarden hedge, and saw with amazement this long-bearded, shab- 
ily clothed, wild man, who wept aloud as he walked up and 
lown. 

In the evening in summer he took his little girl with him and 
ed her to the cemetery. They came back at nightfall, when 
he only light left in the Place was that in Binet’s window. 

The voluptuousness of his grief was, however, incomplete, 
‘or ne had no one near him to share it, and he paid visits to 
Madame Lefrancois to be able to speak of her. But the land- 
ady only listened with half an ear, having troubles like himself. 
for Lheureux had at last established the “Favorites du Com- 
nerce,” and Hivert, who enjoyed a great reputation for doing 
‘rrands, insisted on a rise of wages, and was threatening to 
ro over “to the opposition shop.” 

One day when he had gone to the market at Argueil to sell 
1is horse—his last resource—he met Rodolphe. 

They both turned pale when they caught sight of one another. 
Rodolphe, who had only sent his card, first stammered some 
ipologies, then grew bolder, and even pushed his assurance (it 
was in the month of August and very hot) to the length of in- 
viting him to have a bottle of beer at the public-house. 

_ Leaning on the table opposite him, he chewed his cigar as he 
talked, and Charles was lost in reverie at this face that she had 
loved. He seemed to see again something of her in it. It was 


272 MADAME BOVARY 


a marvel to him. He would have liked to have been this man 

The other went on talking agriculture, cattle, pasturage, filling 
out with banal phrases all the gaps where an allusion might slig 
in. Charles was not listening to him; Rodolphe noticed it, anc 
he followed the succession of memories that crossed his face 
This gradually grew redder; the nostrils throbbed fast, the lip: 
quivered. There was at last a moment when Charles, full of < 
sombre fury, fixed his eyes on Rodolphe, who, in something o: 
fear, stopped talking. But soon the same look of weary lassitud: 
came back to his face. 

“IT don’t blame you,” he said. | 

Rodolphe was dumb. And Charles, his head in his hands 
went on in a broken voice, and with the resigned accent of in 
finite sorrow— | 

“No, I don’t blame you now.” | 

He even added a fine phrase, the only one he ever made— 

“It is the fault of fatality!” | 

Rodolphe, who had managed the fatality, thought the remar! 
very offhand from a man in his position, comic even, and | 
little mean. ; | 

The next day Charles went to sit down on the seat in th 
arbour. Rays of light were straying through the ‘trellis, th 
vine leaves threw their shadows on the sand, the jasmines per 
fumed the air, the heavens were blue, Spanish flies buzzed roun| 
the lilies in bloom, and Charles was suffocating like a yout) 
beneath the vague love influences that filled his aching hear 

At seven o’clock little Berthe, who had not seen him all th 
afternoon, went to’fetch him to dinner. 

His head was thrown back against the wall, his eyes close: 
his mouth open, and in his hand was a long tress of black hai 

“Come along, papa,” she said. 

And thinking he wanted to play, she pushed him gently. H 
fell to the ground. He was dead. 

Thirty-six hours after, at the druggist’s request, Monsiet 
Canivet came thither. He made a post-mortem and four 
nothing. . 

When everything had been sold, twelve francs seventy-fi 
centimes remained, that served to pay for Mademoiselle Bovary 
going to her grandmother. The good woman died the same yea’ 
old Rouault was paralysed, and it was an aunt who took char 
of her. She is poor, and sends her to a cotton-factory to ea! 
a living. 

Since Bovary’s death three doctors have followed one anoth 
at Yonville without any success, so severely did Homais atta 


| 





MADAME BOVARY 273 
them. He has an enormous practice; the authorities treat him 


with consideration, and public opinion protects him. 
He has just received the cross of the Legion of Honour. 


THE END. 


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